Against conceptualism, hedonism and the cult of the ego-artist.

February 20, 2009 9:35 PM

The Stuckists are a loosely affiliated group of artists - mainly painters - with some strong opinions, helpfully spelled out in a manifesto.

From the manifesto:

• Stuckism is the quest for authenticity.
• Artists who don’t paint aren’t artists.
• Art that has to be in a gallery to be art isn’t art
• The Stuckist is opposed to the sterility of the white wall gallery system and calls for exhibitions to be held in homes

Formed in 1999, they are against conceptual art, gallery-award culture, hold a pretty serious grudge against Damian Hurst and annually protest the ceremony of Britian's Turner Prize. Here is a collection of self-diagnosed Stuckist paintings on flickr. Many more artists can be found by following the links here.

From the website: The name Stuckism was derived, in the best art historical tradition, from an insult, in this case from 1999 Turner Prize Nominee, Tracey Emin, to ex-boyfriend, Billy Childish: "Your paintings are stuck, you are stuck! Stuck! Stuck! Stuck!"

There is an second - but not final - manifesto called Remodernism: towards a new spirituality in art. It was written at about the same time as the original Stuckist manifesto which seems to be a guidelines for a sort of non-painters auxiliary.

• We don't need more dull, boring, brainless destruction of convention, what we need is not new, but perennial.
• The Remodernist's job is to bring God back into art but not as God was before.
• Why do we need a new spirituality in art? Because connecting in a meaningful way is what makes people happy.

Previously.

posted by shothotbot (46 comments total)

They say they against "striving for public recgonition" but than maintain a website with blogs, they claim to be the anti anti-art, they say artists who don't paint aren't artists (stuck up much?), they criticize gallery art while having gallery showings, they are pretentious enough to have a manifesto, and they are against pretty much everything. I never want to hang out with any of these people.
posted by BrnP84 at 10:00 PM on February 20

Interesting to hold the flickr gallery accountable to their manifesto... it did explain a lot - amateur hobyists who cant afford sculpture material justifying their crappy unskilled and unoriginal art who admit that if you don't like it that their art is probably wrong and crappy anyway... On a positive note, since they are also self described non-career artists hopefully none of them will quit their day job...
posted by Nanukthedog at 10:10 PM on February 20

I don't understand- what's with the painting fetish?
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:22 PM on February 20

Stuck-up-ists is more like it.
posted by mazola at 10:32 PM on February 20

This ironically anti-conceptual performance art is just too meta for me, man. What this world really needs is more Leroy Nieman.
posted by erniepan at 10:34 PM on February 20

Google-image searching Stuckism, I found a refreshingly varied selection of art. Most good, some, not so much. An enemy of my enemy (Damien Hirst, the premier money-maker of the art world these days) is a friend of mine.

Now, I do like conceptual art. We part company there.

Regarding the previous comment, I don't think they are being especially ironic, as you are in your ironic elevation of Leroy Nieman. Plus, they are not performance artists, as you state. They are painters.
posted by kozad at 10:42 PM on February 20

i can't really address Stuckism per se, but anything with Billy Childish in the origin myth is pretty much gonna be something I like (Childish is, wot, on the outs with? not a member? i can't, don't even try, to keep up).
posted by mwhybark at 10:56 PM on February 20

Noses are hard to get right.
posted by longsleeves at 10:56 PM on February 20

Any critic of Julian Schnabel is ok by me. I don't get why the come down on Hirst, though. He's just from a slightly older school of punk.
posted by artdrectr at 11:00 PM on February 20

If you don't live in the UK (or possibly London) it's probably not clear what they're rebelling against. There is a tremendous amount of mediocre British conceptual art, which dominates the galleries, and is locked in a perpetual ritual of mock-outrage with the tabloids.

Whatever you think of the Stuckists, they do have good taste in enemies...
posted by TheophileEscargot at 11:01 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]

I'm a wile e coyoyte
an I will catch you if i can
oh I'll getchyoo road runner if you cross my land

I got atomic powered cadillac that's built just for speed
I got six foot bedsprings tied to both of my feet
I got thunderbolt contraption and a sherman tank
I got every single thing
I wild coyote might need


(or words to that effect, lyrics tenderly spooned from my skull some twenty years later, after Senyor Childish's original number i believe)
posted by mwhybark at 11:02 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]

wait! I am missing a line about 'fuel-injected roller skates!'

Childish is a genius, no two ways about it.
posted by mwhybark at 11:04 PM on February 20

I've got rocket-powered fuel-injected roller skates
I've got every single thing...

ah, that's better.
posted by mwhybark at 11:05 PM on February 20

But they are still holding themselves back.

What is needed is a pure group of manifestoists who have broken through the anti-spiritual meta-narrative of these artists and have transcended this to actualize themselves and realise that the making of all forms of art is in fact a betrayal of the artists true inner-pseudoself.

The manifestoists will eschew all actual making of art as tragically bourgeois and only a function of globalisation. All manifestiosts will actually do is write manifestos, thus freeing themselves to spend more time drinking tea.
posted by sien at 11:09 PM on February 20 [3 favorites]

I found this interview of Charles Thompson, Stuckism co-founder, to be revealing. His paintings are atmospheric and comicky.

I think the bit about only painters being artists is facetious. Thompson used to be a poet, for one. Apparently Childish would heckle him.

The usual grapes & chardonnay gallery vibe is a bore, and its strange that its crazy to say so. Basically, they're punk. Or maybe folk. I can't tell.
posted by sidr at 11:13 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]

Grumble, grumble, grumble.

I like it, if it means they wake up and do art, and they aren't much concerned with creating events, stenciling the city while disguised in a Zorro mask, and cutting sharks in half. If what they want to do is paint things that people want to look at because people want to look at them, and not because we are aware of the biography of the artists and their proclamations on the state of the world, and not because the painting is a yes-man saying something we agree with, that's a good thing.

And I like the examples I've seen so far going through the links.
posted by pracowity at 11:30 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]

Why do Western artists feel the need to label their art as part of a "movement"?

My favorite art movement these days is pixivism. These pictures are all from a website called "pixiv". I don't believe there is any political inclination associated with these drawings. It's just a bunch of folks who got together and started making good art. The overwhelming majority of the art is good old-fashioned 2D drawings and never exhibited in museums. Are they "Stuckist"?

I think if your art is good enough you can just do what you love to do and let other people worry about labeling you.
posted by shii at 11:42 PM on February 20

I don't know longsleeves, I think this one is pretty good.
posted by Chuckles at 11:49 PM on February 20

"Why do Western artists feel the need to label their art as part of a 'movement'?"

Well, yeah but it's the same with music, film, fashion, etc. I sort of naturally rebel against the status quo, but I can also see it as sort of an interesting societal conversation, like take this idea and see what others do with it, back and forth. Then discard it when it starts feeling worn out and go in a different direction. It can be interesting how certain concepts build on one another, but a lot of people ride it just to get on the bandwagon or make money. But I also remember how Miles Davis helped usher in the era of Cool Jazz, and that's just one example of an art movement I can get into.
posted by krinklyfig at 11:56 PM on February 20

What is needed is a pure group of manifestoists who have broken through the anti-spiritual meta-narrative of these artists and have transcended this to actualize themselves and realise that the making of all forms of art is in fact a betrayal of the artists true inner-pseudoself.



Didn't the surrealists try this for a couple of weeks?
posted by louche mustachio at 12:06 AM on February 21 [1 favorite]

While I love experiencing conceptual art, in all of the arts, there is certainly something in the air. Through the (currently) tiny window of the art-music world I look through, many of the people I talk with are expressing the very same ideas as these guys. It brought to mind an interview I heard/read with a young up-and-coming composer a couple years back who defined his work as "neo-competency" -- I can't for the life of me find the source now. Now, I find manifestos a bit silly in the modern age, but more power to them for getting together and finding a way to define what they are about and to do it collectively rather than being antagonistic, isolated and embittered.
posted by sundri at 1:30 AM on February 21

Their "first and best-known Stuckist manifesto" has me whipsawed:

4. Artists who don’t paint aren’t artists.
20 years ago I used to paint houses, does that make me and not Stevie
Wonder an artist?

5. Art that has to be in a gallery to be art isn’t art.
Yes.

6. The Stuckist paints pictures because painting pictures is what matters.
Can I have fries with that?


Ok, I get it now, I think.
posted by vapidave at 2:00 AM on February 21

Artists who don’t paint aren’t artists.
Maybe its so ironic I dont get it but, I dont get it.

Art that has to be in a gallery to be art isn’t art
Now this I like along with the injunction to move art out of white walled galleries.

Yes the art produced by artists who are choosing this as a flag to rally to is uneven, maybe even mostly forgettable, but so is most art however collected.

I think the remodernism idea is pretty interesting but I am not sure what anyone has done to move forward. Spirituality without superstition is a big problem and cant be brought to a satisfactory conclusion by saying "God is Dead." And of course its exactly artists who are supposed to be noodling with problems which are not clear enough to solve.
posted by shothotbot at 7:50 AM on February 21

Why do Western artists feel the need to label their art as part of a "movement"?

It helps with sales. Individual artists have to succeed on their own merits, but being part of a movement legitimizes their work in the mind of the buyer.

This is especially true for movements like this one, which seem to be designed to explain away a lack of technical skill on the part of the painters.
posted by ook at 8:05 AM on February 21

Stuckism is the quest for authenticity.

Authentic is one of those terms like natural that finds little honest use in the language. Here, it's being used to lionize a kind of reactionary romanticism that's as contrived and self aware as what it's reacting against. If they were writers they'd be using vintage mechanical typewriters or fountain pens. It's a ren-faire for artists.
posted by fleetmouse at 8:16 AM on February 21 [3 favorites]

not talented enough to just be painters, not smart enough to just be artists, a group of anti-intellectual, anti-feminist honky babies with ego problems.

and by allowing myself to think about them for even this long, i've brought back my eye twitch and given those hamfisted bags of dicks exactly what they're after. bah!
posted by wreckingball at 9:11 AM on February 21

Isms in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an ism. He should believe in himself.
posted by nosila at 9:15 AM on February 21

narcissistic anti romanticism, please kill me now
posted by doobiedoo at 9:35 AM on February 21

Stuckism is an anti-ism ism, non-movement movement that decries ego-artists by aggrandizing themselves and shuns playing games of shock and gimmick with ignorant pronouncements about what is and isn't art. Put simply: these people have self-esteem issues.
posted by effwerd at 9:37 AM on February 21

Isms in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an ism. He should believe in himself.

you mean like some kind of outlandish individual-ism?
posted by doobiedoo at 9:49 AM on February 21 [2 favorites]

If what they want to do is paint things that people want to look at because people want to look at them

This is the core of what stuckists are about. They're reactionary, but IMHO conceptual art should be reacted against. The bit about 'only painters are artists' is not meant to disparage sculptors, it's meant to exclude artists who don't really make anything but a statement.

Isms in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an ism. He should believe in himself.

It's a nice thought, but nobody makes art in a vacuum, and isms are a way of recognizing community and continuity (and discontinuities). Like everything in the art world, it's frequently taken too far, but isms can be helpfully viewed as signposts rather than straitjackets.

When I was in art school, we used to joke about being part of the 'neo-postism' movement. Any ism you conceived of, we'd already moved beyond it by aping and parodying it.
posted by fatbird at 9:59 AM on February 21 [1 favorite]

Put simply: these people have self-esteem issues.

Hey, I'm a painter with self esteem issues who hates gallery openings, too, but you don't see me writing manifestos and starting movements about my social ineptitude and pet peeves.
posted by louche mustachio at 10:21 AM on February 21

I'm kinda sorta with wreckingball on this. It's the fervent need to place art-making into enough rigidly stuckist-defined categories that the stuckists can then point to as marks of quality in order to justify their overwhelmingly conservative ideas that reminds me of all sorts of other neo-conservative attitudes outside the art world. The obsession with being able to determine strict definitions of quality (largely bereft of content and primarily technique-based) rather than pursue new modes of communication and explore the limitations of creative production without regard to placing one's work in some hierarchal pecking order of mastery is rather pathetic.
To wit:

Art that has to be in a gallery to be art isn’t art
Now this I like along with the injunction to move art out of white walled galleries.
Sure, I can agree with this. A gallery should simply provide a context for the viewer, and a lot of work can and should be placed in a context other than a gallery, depending on the intent of the artist. But you know what is even more of an artificial convention that tells us something should be contemplated as art than a gallery space? A square canvas with paint on it. Especially if it's framed. Logic=Fail.

While I love experiencing conceptual art, in all of the arts, there is certainly something in the air.
Yes, it's called anti-intellectualism.
posted by stagewhisper at 10:23 AM on February 21 [1 favorite]

My attitude towards "movements" is probably best summed up by something a friend says now and then:

Make art, not noise.

I look at "movements" and see nobody starting one I can get behind, and have no interest in starting one myself. I just hang out with other artists whose work I like and occasionally talk about processes, goals, and our latest pieces; there's no real similarity in our work besides the fact that we've all passed through the "furry fandom". I've exhibited in a "pop surrealist" gallery but don't really feel much commonality with the stuff I see under that label. I'm just this cartoonist chick who likes drawing pretty sci-fi stuff, yknow?

I can agree with the Stuckist dislike for gallery art whose only message seems to be "but what is 'art' anyway?"; I deliberately chose a "commercial art" path in school rather than a "fine art" path because I found all that stuff to feel like a bunch of lame excuses for not learning to draw competently.
posted by egypturnash at 10:26 AM on February 21

"Why do Western artists feel the need to label their art as part of a 'movement'?"

They don't. You just never hear about someone not writing a manifesto.

IAAA, but I always have a hard time commenting on art posts on here. I don't understand the hate for Damien Hirst, or why it gets brought up no matter what. Last I knew, Jeff Koons was making way more money than anyone, if profit or fame make an artist objectionable.

At the heart of my commenter's block, though, is that I don't understand why people think that their (or anyone else's) definition of art is, or can be, "correct." I find that when art actually pisses me off, then that's an indication that it's nudged something I didn't know could be nudged, or wasn't comfortable getting nudged, which is as close as I can come to something that I think art "should" do.
posted by cmoj at 10:37 AM on February 21 [1 favorite]

I deliberately chose a "commercial art" path in school rather than a "fine art" path because I found all that stuff to feel like a bunch of lame excuses for not learning to draw competently."

That's a leap of logic that should be examined a little more closely. The best drafts people I know are also "fine artists" whose interest lies in composing images directly from observed life, not commercial artists who largely work from photography and other two dimensional source imagery. Please note I am not necessarily elevating studio artists above illustrators or graphic designers in terms of status. It's just that the intent of commercial art and the intent of the studio artist are usually very different.

That given, there are many "non-commercial" artists whose interests lie in exploring avenues other than realistic compositions in two or three dimensions. For these artists, time spent developing drafting skills would be a nice bonus but rendering forms is not a necessary step in the production of their work, and not having highly developed drawing skills does not impede their final work.

Lots of people like to justify the applying the word "artist" to themselves by being able to point to drawings of recognizable objects that they've done, because unfortunately that is all the general public still accepts as a sign of creative competence. I think the work "artist" carries a lot of baggage that we'd all be better of shedding, and I myself struggle to find a better label for what I am.
posted by stagewhisper at 10:48 AM on February 21

While I love experiencing conceptual art, in all of the arts, there is certainly something in the air.
Yes, it's called anti-intellectualism.

Interesting stagewhisper, how would you distinguish between a movement (or tendency) which is being attacked for anti-intellectual reasons and one which is being criticized for aesthetic or philosophical reasons? Or is art beyond valid criticism in some sense?
posted by shothotbot at 11:01 AM on February 21

Some time ago, I decided that art is primarily about the privilege of the frame.
This all strikes me as so much, "My system of privilege is superior to your system of privilege."
posted by Richard Daly at 11:01 AM on February 21

I don't understand the hate for Damien Hirst, or why it gets brought up no matter what. Last I knew, Jeff Koons was making way more money than anyone, if profit or fame make an artist objectionable.

Both Hirst and Koons are irritating for the same reason that Paris Hilton is irritating: they're sui generis celebrities, famous mostly for being famous. The money they command for their work seems out of all proportion to its value or interest, or to the effort required, or to anything we'd normally call artistic talent. There's this feeling that they're gaming the system somehow. It's hard not to feel that they're laughing at the suckers paying millions for a shark in formaldehyde.

To which they'd probably reply, yes, they're gaming the system. That's the art right there, at its root, and they're not the first. And if you doubt that what they're doing is art, look at the strong emotions it raises in everyone else. You want meta-narrative about what's art? Look at all the ink and bits that have been spilled hating them. Who's more an artist, someone who's loved and hated by the art world, or someone who makes pretty pictures that people hang on their walls? One's irony meter goes a little haywire contemplating them.
posted by fatbird at 11:24 AM on February 21 [2 favorites]

Look, I hate to join the pile-on, but here goes:

The main thrust of 20th century art was a massive expansion in what "art" could be. We started the century with only painting and sculpture, really, and mostly representational at that. Then we had an explosion of assemblages, combines, collages, photography, film, installation, earthworks, performance, video, and conceptual work.

We no longer have to judge something as art or not art based on what medium it is or where it is. Joseph Beuys's Sled is art. One and Three Chairs is art. Hell, even Koons's outsourced bullshit is art, just as much as Hirst's sawed-up cadavers and butterfly houses.

The question then is, is it good art? Does it work effectively? Is the medium suited to the aims of the work and does the artist pull it off?

Instead of worrying about making good art, these folks are worrying about making pure art, authentic art. But what the fuck do I care if you're making "authentic" art or not? What the fuck do I care if you're true to yourself? I'm not your mom. My interest is in the audience half of the work, where I decide whether it speaks to me, whether I appreciate your skill in communicating, whether my experience is deep or shallow. Who am I to judge your authenticity?

In some part, I understand their frustrations. Making good art is hard. Maybe I'm just speaking as an amateur photographer, but the vast majority of work I produce sucks. Not only that, but as I get better, the earlier work sucks in comparison. But it's still hard, demanding work, work that requires both a conceptual intelligence and a technical skill, and a receptive audience. It's not easy. But being authentic? Fuck, man, every shot I've taken has been authentic. They're all an expression of my attempts to capture something with meaning, real meaning, for me. Doesn't mean they're good or should be shown. You wanna rag on ego artists? Fuck, man, that's what Modernism WAS! That's what "authenticity" IS!
posted by klangklangston at 11:52 AM on February 21 [3 favorites]

I just wanna add, the first time I saw a picture Damien Hirst's Love Lost, I was deeply moved and burst into tears. None of this adolescent nostalgia for the oil palette and the artist's garret does that to me. What's Love Lost about? I think it's about the paradox of transformation and statis, how the moment of loss is both transient and eternal. It's about the moment when something changes and nothing will ever be the same again, the moment - as they said in the recent Frontline documentary on the credit crisis - when all the air leaves the room.
posted by fleetmouse at 12:31 PM on February 21

but the vast majority of work I produce sucks.

Mine too. Let's start a movement. We can call it "Suckism."
posted by louche mustachio at 12:56 PM on February 21

shothotbot:
Interesting stagewhisper, how would you distinguish between a movement (or tendency) which is being attacked for anti-intellectual reasons and one which is being criticized for aesthetic or philosophical reasons? Or is art beyond valid criticism in some sense?

I'm confused by your question, although I'll take a stab at it if you are asking a general question about an anti-conceptual backlash, since I think it's fairly obvious if you take a look at the actual work produced by the core group of stuckists it's not what most people would call highly concerned with aesthetics-it's all a rehash of so-called "bad art" (without the smarts, painting skill, and actual social commentary that lets someone like Nicole Eisenman get away with it) and apes cubism, pop-art, and German expressionism. Philosophically, yes, I would say they are anti-intellectual.

Aesthetics is a weak platform to argue from, it presupposes underlying truths about beauty and disregards the fact that all of us experience ideas and objects in very particular ways, depending on our preconceptions, lived experience, knowledge, familiarity with any given topic, etc.

Complete objectivity is a lie, so criticisms based on absolutes regarding how we experience a given work of art immediately seem to either be hopelessly trying to hold on to long-since discarded ideas of purity, truth, and genius (you know, insert the whole post modern condition thingie here) or else just poorly thought-out drivel. That is not the same thing as saying that art is somehow beyond valid criticism. See klangklangton's comment above for more on this.
posted by stagewhisper at 2:52 PM on February 21

Because I have a major hard-on for Jeff Koons, I would like to say a few things:

He outsources the construction, not the design of things. Also, he (and his employees) paint them. It takes several years to go through a production cycle (of three or so) of one piece.

You know those collages he does? Those are paintings that take him like 7 years to do. As far as I can tell, he physically does the painting himself. Not that that matters.

Having briefly met the guy and seen him speak, I do not get the impression that he's having a laugh off of anyone. I Imagined he'd be kind of fast-talking... used-car-salesman-type, but he was quite the opposite... soft spoken, with simple, elegant ideas.

About the importance of the "solo, self-sufficient artist" or whatever, Botticelli had assistants who were very upset not to get credit for their beautiful leaves. Raphael and Vasari too. Chuck Close had assistants doing most of the elbow work in the 80's (he actually got more involved after his accident). Kara Walker also has a small army of assistants. Would Ron Mueck's stuff even be possible without a whole team?

And is there really a discussion about the validity of abstraction? Please. The idea that drawing skills are not necessary for abstract or non-objective art is simply wrong. Do you think Pollack couldn't draw? In the way of anecdotes about this one, Picasso drew gorgeously.
posted by cmoj at 7:13 PM on February 21

Actually, cmoj, I have known a couple of people who worked/work for him, and according to them he does not paint those paintings by hand, his employees do. However, he is very much the author of his work, and nobody else. It's his own vision that he's carrying out, whether people find it valid or not. Good point about the assistants. I've worked as an artists' assistant in the past, and there's a world of difference between carrying out the craft or technique in production (which I often did) and actually creating the artwork (which I did not). If nothing else, it's not a bad thing that artists who are early in their own careers can sometimes support themselves by working for more established artists in a field they are passionate about.

As to your second point, I disagree. Drawing skills are not necessary for many forms of art. Video? A fair amount of sculpture? Performance art? Nope. I personally think that good drawing skills are a helpful tool to have in one's arsenal, because drawing can be a useful way of puzzling out ideas and making notations for oneself. The exercise of drawing from life helps one learn how to really look at forms in space and understand how they fit together. Yes, Picasso drew beautifully. Pollack could draw, just like any of us can draw, but if you mean he could draw well in the traditional academic sense, well, no. And he didn't need to, that wasn't where his interests lay.
posted by stagewhisper at 10:05 PM on February 21

Thanks for more specific info about the koons paintings. I wonder why paint them at all then? I was happy when I assumed they were collaged and printed.

I agree that drawing skills aren't necessary in a direct, strict sense, but I would be very interested to learn about a really good artist in any medium that flat-out can't draw. Really, I'd be very intrigued to be wrong about this.
posted by cmoj at 5:35 PM on February 22