Mother condemns the art world and its retinue of perverts!

This Earthbound transmission was recently intercepted by our art news satellite:

"It's Christmas dinner and Mother launches a tirade against the art world and its retinue of perverts (there are two young art students and two lifelong art struglers in the family, two are at the table): It's more of the same old story."

Well Mother knows best, of course, but who or what exactly is she finding repugnant? Is it what's associated with artists? The idea of struggling in poverty, of disillusionment and depression, of being an outsider? Our messenger could surely deal with that - every black-sheep struggles to fit in all year, family gatherings are more intense, but for everyone who deviates from the norm, 'fitting in' and justifying one's existence are part of one's identity.

"the art world and its retinue of perverts"...

Tragic Anatomies : Jake & Dinos Chapman

Perhaps the clue is in the retinue: Mother fears her fledglings might actually be successful and so turn out to be like those few rich & lucky bastards who were set up by Saatchi & Saatchi; who actually have a retinue. The YBA's¹ for instance; yes it's Brit-Art types she despises. She doesn't like it that they've made millions off gimmicks and pop celebrity, snapped up the decaying manor houses and are now throwing film-sized parties with pop/film/football/porn degenerates all over the tabloids. It's Jagger & Marianne Faithful all over again.

Oh Mother, tell me more...²

But oh, come on Mum, those 1990's shocko-jocko-artists deserve some credit: They found something new after modern/post-modern/ppm art was all declared dead. And they made art into money - magic!

Tracey Emin: My Bed  

OK, the art = sliced carcasses, maggots and flies feeding off a rotting cow's head, elephant shit and unmade beds with soiled panties... but there was some good stuff in that scene, and there still is.

But Mother, she's not having any of it (unless you get rich).

Dark days indeed, preempted in 1984 by Suzi Gablik: "To the public... modern art implies a loss of craft, a fall from grace, a fraud or a hoax."³ I'm not American, so I struggle with the 'grace' issue, but what better subject to illuminate the fraud on all sides: Of those pretending, those advocating and those consuming, oh god, whatever that product is you're selling... The thing is, great art can sometimes be produced by fraudulent people, while honest, hardworking artists don't necessarily produce anything of significance.

Gablik went on to write: [...The modern artist] has to contend with [challenges over] the authority and authenticity of what he does. And that's always true I reckon.

There's already been an organised challenge to the YBAs by a group calling themselves Stuckists⁴ - a bunch who prefer the figurative over the conceptual (with Mother's approval no doubt) but guess how they'll behave when they get famous...  It's just that when people get rich and start acting like prats their work, and whatever they claim about it, starts to look like a con or a conformist act. We don't want their personalities, but the entertainment industry does, and while the art remains what it was, the perception shifts followed by  Mother's tar brush.

And that brush really should be burnt, because for all its eccentricities, there is no more prevalence of perverts in the art 'world' than there are in the suburbs, and probably less than in the clergy, or indeed, the 'world' of politics. Even when offensive, art needs to assessed by intention and effect, judged by its gratuitousness or it's importance as reflection of life. A few years on and a lot of the YBA's work diminishes, but some, like Racheal Whiteread's "negative space" sculptures, leave a lasting and profound impression.

Rachel Whiteread : House

From out here in the out here of alternative perspectives there's a view to appreciate all art, despite the proclaimed frauds and freaks and perverts. They walk the streets invisibly while Mother sanctions another window display, but the mannequin winks behind her, while inside a group of black sheep form a herd behind a new label. 

We'll be dropping in on planet Earth again soon, but for now, unfortunately... Mum's the word.

¹YBA's: Young British Artists | ²Syd Barrett (Pink Floyd) Matilda Mother ^{CDP 0777 7 46348 2 5} | ³Suzi Gablik: Has Modernism Failed? ISBN 0-500-23391-8 | ⁴Stuckism