About Les Misérables

I’m really not sure whether Just Stop Oil’s protests ultimately do any good, but when people watch a show celebrating political protest and then complain when it’s interrupted by an act of political protest, a modest irony klaxon ought to be sounding somewhere.

(Long-term readers of this blog, both of you, do not need to be told that the rendering of the June Rebellion as a piece of uplifting theatrical bombast is what Situationism would define as recuperation, the process by which a subversive act is made palatable to mainstream society; and that last night’s protests were its antonym, détournement, subverting a product of the mainstream. Of course what we need now if for someone to make a facile, glossy musical about Just Stop Oil and the whole process can repeat itself ad infinitum until we all burn to death.)

About Van Gogh

Meanwhile, as the clown car of government disintegrates, anti-oil protestors have doused Van Gogh’s Sunflowers with tomato soup. That’s something you can’t do with NFTs. (And yes, it should have been a Warhol.)

PS: 

Soupe Campbell -et non Heinz- distribuée sans intermédiaire, directement du producteur d'urinoir Marcel Duchamp aux consommateurs de #JustStop_Oil.
La réconciliation d'Andy Wahrol et de la meurtrière Valerie Solanas devant le grand verre de protection des tournesols de Van Gogh.

— x.lew brioni (@ExitGloss) October 15, 2022

About Banksy and Quinn

Two recent events, independent of each other but thematically linked, have prompted mass chin-stroking with regard to the definition and legitimacy of art.

First, Banksy’s mask-related modification of a Tube carriage came and then went, removed by a cleaning crew unaware of its provenance (or, indeed, of its potential monetary value to cash-strapped Transport For London). It’s a sharp reminder that, despite the mystery graffitist’s claim to be the most famous living artist in the country, a huge swathe of the population has no clue who he is or what he does, and presumably cares even less.

And then Marc Quinn, of blood head fame (although, bearing in mind what happened to Banksy, perhaps “fame” should be enveloped in multiple ironic air quotes) replaced the fallen statue of a long-dead slaver with one of the campaigner Jen Reid.

And then, no sooner was the Reid statue up, it was removed again, albeit by direct order of the local council. One could of course argue that the permanence of Banksy’s and Quinn’s pieces is not the point; their surreptitious installations are the real works of art in both cases. And because they are both working in these guerrilla traditions, the worst thing that could happen would be for the graffiti and the statue to be permitted, condoned, recuperated by the authorities. The twin erasures, accidental and then deliberate, represent not the destruction of the art, but its culmination and validation, proving that the graffiti and the statue are both too dangerous to exist.

About statues

The simple action of pulling down a statue is, in and of itself, morally neutral; it’s the context that matters. Most of us would have regarded the destruction by the Taliban of the Buddhas of Bamiyan as a bad thing; the toppling of Saddam’s likeness in Firdaus Square as welcome. So the damp demise of Edward Colston in Bristol yesterday should be viewed in the same context. Ultimately, if we believe that Colston’s egregious sins as a trafficker in live human flesh outweigh his endowment of a few entertainment venues, he should have been toppled many years ago.

Interestingly, a compromise had long been available; for the statue to remain, but a plaque putting Colston’s deeds in context to be affixed. This option was foolishly rejected by the good citizens of Bristol but an ad hoc variant was yesterday applied to Churchill’s statue in Parliament Square with the helpful addition of the words “WAS A RACIST” to the plinth.

Well, yes, he was, by modern standards at least (although it shouldn’t be forgotten that his greatest achievement was to save his country and the world from someone who made him look pretty woke by comparison). It could of course be argued that “Churchill was a racist” should be added to the pervasive “#AllLivesMatter” in a list of comments that are empirically true but not particularly helpful in the current circumstances; and the same could apply to the misdeeds of Nelson, Wellington, Cromwell and plenty of others who are still celebrated in bronze.

Not just Dead White Males either. Gandhi expressed some pretty nasty views about Africans; and many of the leaders of the American civil rights movement were less keen about extending said rights to gay people. And doubtless if we dig deep enough into the lives of recently commemorated figures such as Millicent Fawcett or Mary Seacole we’d find something that would at least spark a bit of a Twitterspat if it were said or done today. Doubtless one day there will be a JK Rowling statue in Edinburgh, accompanied by strident demands for it to be tossed unceremoniously into the Firth of Forth.

PS:

All Lives Matter isn't even true. I know loads of people I'd happily push off a cliff if I could get away with it.

— ❓🦎 (@curiousiguana) June 8, 2020

About The Handmaid’s Tale

The use of imagery from The Handmaid’s Tale by those defending women’s hard-won rights over their bodies is a clever piece of visual shorthand, instantly reminding us of the theocratic dystopia heralded by policies such as Alabama’s effective ban on abortion. However, I can’t help but think it also reinforces a further message: essentially, “We read literary fiction (or at least watch TV adaptations thereof) and you dumb hicks don’t.” Which may well be accurate, but in the current sociopolitical climate, is hardly helpful.

PS: I’ve been looking at the list of the state senators who voted for the Alabama ban; such names! Jabo Waggoner. Garland Gudger. Shay Shelnutt. Less a political process, more a Pynchon novel. Although that remark presumably makes the same mistake as the red-caped protestors...

About the cleaners

A brief stop in the SOAS bar last night and I realise that, in aesthetic terms at least, today’s student radicals are still yearning for the good old days.

About Bowie and the vandals

Following on from my earlier post about the conservative (and Conservative) distinction between art and graffiti, I’m intrigued by the attack on the new Bowie statue in Ayslesbury. But, given the general response to the installation over the past few days, I wonder if this is actually the work of the provisional wing of Art Critics Anonymous.

Seven thoughts about #PepsiLivesMatter

So Pepsi made a commercial in which Kendall Jenner, who is apparently a Kardashian, sort of, shows up at a political demonstration and calmed everyone down with a can of fizzy drink and some people didn’t like it so Pepsi said, yeah, fair enough, we’ll pull it.

• It’s just a classic example of recuperation, the tactic of reclaiming radical, transgressive  images/tropes in the cause of capitalism. The flipside of the Situationist tactic of détournement. Every time your favourite old punk anthem shows up in a commercial. That.
• Until this thing happened, I honestly thought Kendall Jenner was a boy.
• Everyone’s so clean and groomed and pretty. Is that what demos are like now? Blimey.
• An Iranian friend has pointed out that the placard with supposedly Arabic text on it just contains random characters that don’t mean anything.
• We’re all talking about Pepsi now.
• And Kendall Jenner.
• Right now, Coca-Cola is working on something bigger and better/worse.

PS: Also, this:

That Kent State shirt and the ultimate triumph of consumer capitalism

Back when I was young and halfway pretty, I got myself involved in a bit of studenty politicsy shenanigans that ended up with a bunch of us barricaded inside the offices of the university vice-chancellor. (He’d attempted to carry on working for half an hour or so while various middle-class Trots and greboes glowered at him, but in the end gave up and vacated his space, presumably deciding that he’d get more done somewhere that didn’t smell of an army surplus store.) 

After a brief period during which we luxuriated in our triumph over The Man, the realisation began to sink in that: a) we weren’t quite sure what to do next; and b) we were breaking all sorts of laws and were running the risk of getting arrested and/or chucked out of university. Damn, we were political agitators, a threat to global capitalism itself — they’d probably send in the SAS to get us out. That was when I, working on the principle that the best way to get to know someone is to check out his/her bookshelf, noticed that our unwilling host owned a copy of the official report into the Kent State University shootings that resulted in the deaths of four students after the Ohio National Guard opened fire in 1970. Shit, as I don’t think we said back then, suddenly got real.

Which is a roundabout and slightly self-indulgent way of acknowledging the brouhaha created by Urban Outfitters’ decision to market a sweatshirt that seems to nod to the Kent State tragedy. And yes, they’ve been forced to apologise, but that’s not the point: we’re talking about Urban Outfitters without them paying us to. That’s the point. It’s a perfect example of recuperation, the process in which radical images and concepts are co-opted to reinforce the status quo. They won, comrades. We lost. And they didn’t even need to send in the SAS.

But while we’re here, do people really still wear sweatshirts?

Art is not a monologue

The last few days have been good ones for the anti-art brigade. First, a man in Miami smashed a vase by Ai Weiwei as a protest against the museum’s failure to promote local artists. Then came that reliable classic, the cleaning lady who thought the art was rubbish and threw it away; in this case, biscuit crumbs in Bari. Both actions provoked sardonic support from those who think it’s not proper art if you can’t make a souvenir tea towel out of it. And now a banal apology by President Obama has provoked a firestorm of Gradgrindian hatred, apparently directed at anything that has the word “art” in it.

What’s interesting is how quiet artists themselves are in all this. Ai Weiwei, not usually one to shy away from expressing his opinion, tutted lamely that he doesn’t think people should do stuff like this (although the pictures above suggests it’s OK to do it to your own art), but that’s about all. The thing is, as media becomes less top-down and more interactive, this is increasingly how criticism will be expressed and creators are going to have to learn how to stick up for themselves. Annie Slaminsky said on Twitter a few days ago that sites such as Flickr have become social media for visually oriented people, which implies that if you do pictures you can’t do words. I hope that isn’t true.

I’m reminded in some ways of what started happening to journalism in the mid-2000s. When I started writing for Comment is Free, there were seasoned journalists who appeared not to want to engage with the rabble below the line, allowing their articles to appear on screen and walking away. As Graham Linehan said, also with reference to Twitter, “You have in your possession a magic mirror, and you're just using it as a mirror!” It was those of us who descended into the pit who really got something out of it and for all the vitriol, the commenters seemed to appreciate it when we did, even if they still thought we were talking bollocks. And if modern art is to beat the austerity-era Gradgrinds, it can’t remain aloof any more. Rising above it is not an option.

PS: Here’s one example of an artist giving the haters a going-over, as photographer Derek Ridgers takes Jonathan Jones to task for his wrong-headed review of a David Bailey show.

PPS: And here are some thoughts about Comment is Free and its founder Georgina Henry, who died this month – in a form she would have appreciated.

PPPS: And it seems as if some of the details in the Bari story were exaggerated. I guess that’s an art as well.

Turkey: memage à trois

For a cultural meme to survive, it needs to adapt, retaining the power of surprise; otherwise it’s just a cliché. Inevitably, this process of evolution is often propelled by a dialectical form of sexual reproduction, as two memes mate to create something new and (potentially) interesting. It’s still not that common, though, to see the offspring of a threesome; especially a threesome that combines a meme that’s very old and tired, one that’s getting that way and one that’s brand spanking new. Respect, then, to the Turkish capulcu, or looters; full story here.

Art news: burning the cakes

Swedish culture minister Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth has come under fire for cutting a cake designed to resemble a stereotyped African woman, although surely a smidgeon of opprobrium should fall on artist-cum-pâtissier Makode Linde, who also makes himself part of the installation, taking the role of the woman’s head, and screaming as the knife goes in. But things become even more confusing when one learns that Mr Linde is himself black and intended the piece to highlight the issue of female genital mutilation. It’s political correctness gone spongey, that’s what it is.

 

And then there’s the news of Neapolitan museum director Antonio Manfredi, who has protested against cuts in state funding by setting fire to some of his paintings. He’s doing this with the full support of the artists concerned, although surely they must have realised that Manfredi is making a bigger aesthetic statement than their own daubs could ever have managed; and the charred wisps will probably be worth more than the original canvases. If only the Momart people had thought to put such a spin on their unfortunate conflagration in 2004.

Apparently Manfredi also has form on the race front, having in 2009 impaled a life-size model of a black woman on the museum gates; but this was a dig at the mafiosi who control the African prostitutes in Naples. So that’s OK then.

Loud speakers

As the news comes in that the old-skool, analogue TV signal will be switched off in the UK next year, one might be forgiven for thinking that the ones and zeroes have finally triumphed. But apparently not. First there’s the story of the Occupy Wall Street protesters getting round a ban on amplified sound by what they describe as the human microphone – essentially an agitprop variant on Chinese whispers. And then we hear of one Nyanza Roberts, a teacher from Hull who is accused of using Facebook to make some unflattering remarks about her students. The neat thing here is that parents only became aware of the comments when some thoughtful soul printed them off and pasted them on walls and lamp-posts around the neighbourhood. Which is, I suppose, nothing more than social networking gone analogue.

PS: This just in from the London protest:

It was a pleasure to burn...

Apparently bookshops have for the most part evaded the attention of the looters; and a Waterstones employee was heard quipping that this is a pity, because “if they steal some books they might learn something.” Which did prompt me to throw together a quick reading list that might throw a little light on the situation, and it was looking something like this:

• Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle
• Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation
• Greil Marcus, Lipstick Traces
• Abbie Hoffmann, Steal This Book...

...when I noticed the delightful Bidisha pointing out that a TV show made for Amnesty International was made by a team of 11 white men and... er... that’s it. And my boring liberal conscience kicked in, and I wondered whether it really matters, but if it does, are there any books by women and/or people who aren’t Caucasian that might be added to my list?

(Title half-inched from the opening of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Image ramraided from the delectable Photoshoplooter. And while we’re vaguely on the subject, if you think reading matter is sacrosanct, look at this.)

PS: As if someone heard me, Bookmarks has come up with a list. It’s more inclusive than mine, but not that much.