An American Stuckist?s Perspective on the Liverpool Biennial
LIVERPOOL BIENNIAL: Stuck In Liverpool
By Jesse Richards
Stuck In Liverpool
An American Stuckist?s Perspective on the Liverpool Biennial
and the Stuckists Punk Victorian at the Walker
As our coach pulled into Liverpool?s Norton Street Station, I felt remarkably calm, not yet nervous about the coming few days. People kept impressing upon me, "Jesse this is a big fucking deal!," but I had no past context in which to comprehend it. This was all new for me. I?d never been overseas nor had I participated in many shows before, never mind having my work displayed in a foreign country?s national gallery. And the Liverpool Biennial? Its website proclaims it "the largest contemporary visual art event in the UK and is an integral part of Liverpool European Capital of Culture 2008. The Liverpool Biennial was delivered in 1999 and presented again in 2002."
All I knew about Liverpool: it was an old port city; once in decline, now being revitalized; and of course, the home of the Beatles (who bore me to tears). Now with that admission out of the way, I have you folks reading this "rather seeing me dead," (just like in the Beatles song).
After securing a room at the Liverpool International Inn, a nice hostel on South Hunter Street, it was time to wander the city. My girlfriend Marisa and I met up with fellow American Stuckist Tony Juliano, and UK Stuckists Charles Thomson and Philip Absolon (great-great-great grandson of the famous watercolorist John), and artist/model Emily Mann (who the character "Emily the Strange" is apparently based on) and we headed to the Albert Dock to walk the Mersey.
As we approached the riverfront, the strains of ABBA?s "Dancing Queen" could be heard in the distance. Immediately suspicious, we walked closer to investigate. We rounded the corner, and there was the Mersey, beautiful coal gray, under a dark sky. And there it was: a little red house playing that song!
We began laughing. It was really pretty silly and strange. "Oh Christ, I hope that?s not supposed to be art, that would just ruin it!," I heard someone mutter.
As Tony related, later, "we couldn?t find a bio or artist statement, so we talked to the late night security guard. All he could say was, ?I don?t know what this is all about. I stay here. They pay me. But I just don?t get it: It?s just a big red house!?"
As it turns out yes, it was an installation by Peter Johansson called Swedish Red House and it is somehow supposed to be about ABBA?s impact on socialism in Sweden. Thus the song blaring, over and over, and thus the color, red. I guess the artist is smarter than me, which is fine, but I agree with the security guard, I just don?t get it.
Later on, I ran into Daisy Delaney, who was staying at the same place as me. Daisy?s project, A Thousand Windmills, can be seen throughout the city.
She installed little homemade windmills on every disused signpost throughout the city. The idea, a concept shared by many public art projects, is to make art available to the pedestrian. Daisy?s hope is that her project will "brighten the day of the common working person, perhaps while they?re waiting for the bus."
Very well intentioned, even if a little bit naive. And they are very pretty windmills.
As far as public art, Yoko Ono installations for the Biennial were most controversial. Her project, My Mummy Was Beautiful, is about "the beauty of motherhood." She has hung, two photographs as banners, around downtown Liverpool- on signposts, billboards, at the John Lennon International Airport, as well as the city?s Catholic cathedral. Photograph one was of a lovely blondish bushy vagina, with the caption, "My Mummy Was Beautiful" right below the lowest pubic hair. Photograph number two was of a giant female breast with a pointy pink nipple, with the same caption beneath. Tony felt that "the giant breast on the cathedral reminded me of that Woody Allen movie." He asked, "Have you seen that one, where the giant breast terrorizes the town? That was funny; but no one seemed to take notice of Yoko?s work." My reaction? I guess Liverpool is a hell of a lot more liberal than anyplace else I?ve been lately. And I?m sure the children in downtown Liverpool appreciated the anatomy lesson.
In the Walker Art Gallery, one of Liverpool?s national museums, two painting exhibitions are running concurrently: the John Moores 23 painting competition, and the Stuckists Punk Victorian. The Walker, looks exactly like it should, that is, a beautiful old British museum (authentically old and grand, as opposed to the readymade American knock-offs). The John Moores 23 painting competition features 56 exhibits from 1900 entries. The Walker describes the prizes: "The first prizewinner collects ?25,000, but it is no longer a purchase prize. This means that the artist has not donated the picture to the Walker as a condition of the award, increasing the overall value of the prize to the winner. There are four further prizes of ?2500 each."
Alexis Harding won the ?25,00 with the painting, Slump/Fear (orange/black), a slop of oil and gloss paint on an MDF board. He describes each painting as in "moment of transformation." The gimmick here is that the paint is not dry when the painting was hung, and drips down the board toward the floor. No compositional techniques need be discussed, as none were used, Harding leaves everything entirely up to chance.
Paul Elliker?s painting Mambo Nomads, appears to me to be copied from a diagram of a volcano in a second grade textbook. Here?s Paul?s rather pretentious explanation of it: "My work depicts geological and landscape scenes including mountains, canyons and volcanoes. A major part in the process of making these paintings is the scouring of shops and markets for relevant material. It is during this search that the selection and editing process begins.
The low culture images appropriated nearly always reference some sort of romantic ideal or sublime act of nature. In contrast to romanticism?s religious symbolism, the paintings respond to our media-saturated environment, in which the natural world is processed, packaged and consumed many times over.
Mambo Nomads is part of a series of works that focus more specifically on illustrations of geological phenomena. The analytical nature of these ?cross sections? is at odds with traditional and expressive illustrations of the landscape. This lack of expression is manifested in the use of flat acrylic color, emphasizing the artificiality of the images used."
Why the need for a "lack of expression"? Perhaps we weren?t accepted into the geology program at the local university.
Alex Pollard?s prizewinning painting, Outlaw Vortex, was my favorite of the paintings at the John Moores 23. It depicts Robin Hood in a vortex?a really creepy effect. Whirly, gray and black, Robin Hood leaning over a table, writing and the whole image spinning and distorted. Pollard?s painting was one of just a few that had any real emotional value to it. Most of the paintings came off as purely academic exercises in technical painting, which seems to me a prevalent issue in modern painting, making art that is only for other painters, not real, everyday people.
The Stuckists Punk Victorian at the Walker for the Liverpool Biennial
Stuckism is a radical and controversial art group that was co-founded in 1999 by Charles Thomson and Billy Childish (who left in 2001) along with eleven other artists. The name was derived by Thomson from an insult to Childish from his ex-girlfriend, Brit artist Tracey Emin, who told him that his art was ?stuck? (which I think she means him painting, which she sees as an outmoded art form.) The Stuckists stand for contemporary figurative painting with ideas. They oppose conceptual art, mainly because of what they regard as its lack of concepts.
As well as staging numerous exhibitions, the Stuckists have regularly demonstrated (at times dressed as clowns) against the Turner Prize (a prize named for a figurative painter, which is notorious for only being awarded to conceptual/installation artists). Several Stuckist Manifestos have been issued. One of them, Remodernism, inaugurates a renewal of spiritual values for art, culture and society "to replace the emptiness of current Postmodernism." There are now some 90 Stuckist groups worldwide. Manifestos in full can be found at www.stuckism.com.
Tony Juliano and I had come from the US earlier in the week. His painting Holy Cow and mine Night Life were included in the show. My first experience with the show was in the afternoon on the day I arrived in Liverpool. We stepped inside and were ushered upstairs to the exhibition by curator Ann Bukantas. The paintings had just finished being hung and the sight was incredible. Tony described the sight as , "walls exploding with color and emotion." Over two hundred paintings by 38 artists covered the walls from floor to ceiling. The work crossed the spectrum in styles and methods. Some cleaner, some rougher (my preference, and I think where I fit in) but all paintings. The most paintings I?d ever seen in one exhibition. In one room for that matter.
Here are a couple highlights:
My Grandfather Will Fight You by Joe Machine, of his grandfather, a wiry dangerous looking guy with blood dripping from his knuckles, is, in my opinion, one of the best Stuckist paintings. Machine?s work is the epitome of raw, real expressive painting. With Joe it comes straight from the heart and the gut, and that?s pretty much what Joe?s like in person. One of the best moments in the show was when the director of the Tate Modern, Sir Nicholas Serota came in to check things out, and ran into Joe Machine and Charles Thomson. Joe asked Sir Nicholas what he thought. Serota replies, "Well it is lively" and Joe responds in turn with "Lively?" (Long scary pause) "Is that all?"
Being On the Dole Is Like Playing Chess With Hitler by Wolf Howard, is another rough, raw one that nails it right. As many of us know, being on the dole or on welfare and such can certainly have that kind of dread to it. Sort of an undescribable feeling really, maybe except in a painting. Unfortunately didn?t meet Wolf yet, but I have a lot of respect for him.
The Stuckist Photographers at the Lady Lever Gallery
Stuckism which is pretty much specific to painting, through the Remodernism
manifesto which calls for a more inclusive call for a return to spirituality in culture and society has given birth to two new groups of Stuckist/Remodernist photographers and film makers, Remodernist Film and Photography, and the Stuckist Photographers. The London based group the Stuckist Photographers, including Larry Dunstan, Wolf Howard, Charles Thomson and Andy Bullock had there first major show as well.
Wolf Howard?s pinhole photographs of a pocket watch, a trench cap, and his friend Billy Childish are beautiful haunting images that seem to be from a world long gone by. I?ve really never seen anything like it.
Charles Thomson?s photographs documenting the development of the Stuckism movement and some of its key players and moments, really explains this development quite nicely without words.
The work of Andy Bullock on the other hand, and Dunstan to a slightly lesser degree unfortunately smacks of them being conceptual artists in Stuckist clothing. Bullock?s silly installation photography incorporates a birdcage, CD?s with photographs printed on them, and some insincere commentary about George W. Bush and Tony Blair wanting to destroy the world. Perhaps they do, but all that Bullock?s work comes off as if he is some poser trying to be trendy by putting images of mushroom clouds and anti-Bush commentary on CD?s and in birdcages and calling it art. If it were lying on a sidewalk instead of sitting in a gallery would someone call it art? I think that?s a reasonable question to ask sometimes.
The Liverpool Biennial runs from Sept 18th 2004 – Nov. 28th 2005.
The Stuckists Punk Victorian runs from Sept. 18th 2004 – Feb. 20th 2005 at the Walker.
