Night Soil

What’s the Point they’ll all be dead.

I have failed to get to the gallery today. I had intended to be really organised having written a long list of to dos. Of that list I have achieved: paying a cheque in to the bank, writing two invoices, writing an email to my solicitor, burning 3 DVDs for a film festival in Holland but no more. At home, the cress circle planted in Annabel’s jumper is doing very well, at the gallery I am sure it will all be dead.

I wish I hadn’t planted the cress in the heart, it looks like I might be trying to create some horrific symbolism, but maybe that doesn’t matter.

The DVDs I have burnt, or more accurately, am burning, are for a festival in Holland. I entered it months ago and then completely forgot to send them the film. So yesterday I received a kind email from the organisers reminding me to get on with it. I like entering these sorts of events, they are run as open art events should be. They are generally free and generally good natured affairs. I suppose video still has an advantage over the plastic arts (its lighter for a start) but I wish more open calls were run on this basis. Jasper Joffe recently questioned the John Moores painting prize on Twitter. He was wondering what the £25 entrance fee was for. John Moores replied that it covered the prize and the delivery of the work. So in effect it is really a sort of art lottery (Annabel tells me they run the pools, so this is not surprising). Also as Joffe (and Annabel) have pointed out, the lottery is rigged, high profile artists nearly always win so in effect the aspiring pay for established to be blessed with more recognition and a bit of cash. I’m also starting to wonder (I know I’m a bit late, but things come slowly to me) about the Turner Prize. Who goes to see it? I wonder if it is mostly artists, arts professionals, aspiring artists and art students. Where does the entrance money go? please don’t tell me it goes towards funding the next Turner prize. And so on to fair Ipswich, where the new University has announced an open call for artists wanting a solo show at their waterfront gallery and £300. There is an entrance fee of £15, no doubt it will cover administration fees and the prize (which, lets face it, the artist will spend setting up the exhibition). It will be interesting to see who gets the show (and who applies). I’ve just remembered something else Sue Jones said at the “Too Many Artists” discussion. She noted that because of a strong Victorian influence upon the way british society views art that contemporary artists and galleries are unwilling to charge entry to exhibitions (and the public are unwilling to pay). They will pay to see Leonardo of course and the Turner prize, but this is a different thing altogether. I think for contemporary artists there is a real fear that if they were to charge, no one would go. And another thing, what the hell is going on for the Olympics? We have some seriously shit posters by the greats of british art, we have a red helter-skelter bunged up by Kapoor (I should be glad it is not another Gormley) and now Hirst is having a bloody retrospective at the Tate and selling accessible artwork to the hoipoloi. £500 for a mobile phone video of that skull thing, not that accessible is it? At least the Hirst show will be free, It will be free won’t it?

Retreat From Peckham

“hello, police? I don’t know if you can help me, someone hasn’t stolen my bike”

“Can you tell me exactly what has occurred sir?”

“They’ve put another lock on my bike”

“They’ve put another lock on your bike?”

“They’ve put another lock on my bike.”
…
…
“Hello?”
“Sorry to keep you waiting sir I have been consulting with my colleague”

“I suggest you take the bike home sir.”

“I can’t it is chained to a bike-stand”

“just a moment sir”

( return to top and repeat)

Some person or persons (I always imagine thieves in packs having seen a government information film in the nineties) had added a large padlock to my shackle which in turn secured my 1960s RSW 16. No doubt they intended to return in the wee hours with bolt croppers. Either that or it was an hilarious practical joke. This seems to be a difficult thing to explain on the phone and the officer I spoke to couldn’t get it into her head that I was unable to take my bike home and deal with it in the morning. In the end neither police nor station security could help me beyond proffering a talismanic crime number to prove I was the one offended against.

So I marched determinedly home to fetch a hacksaw and marched determinedly back to the station equipped to free my bike. I only paid £10 for this bike and having sold bits off it for more than £30 felt I must not let Ipswich’s criminal element profit from my enterprising nature (although, I have to admit the young man I bought it off looked more than a little dodgy himself).

Hacksaws are incredibly noisy, and even noisier after midnight. However, if the police arrived, I had been instructed to shout “I have a crime number” before they pepper sprayed me. I was told this powerful juju would protect me. If only Steve Wright (Ipswich’s own serial killer) had known this, he could have shouted “It’s ok, I have a crime number” as he stuffed another body into the boot of his car. Actually people didn’t seem to mind seeing a man hack-sawing at a lock on a bike. I must have appeared such an ineffectual thief that they somehow trusted me. I was forced to tell my tale of woe more than once, but it was more out of friendly interest on the part of my interrogators than legal concern.

It was nearly 2am when I finally cut through the padlock and was able to cycle home. This was no ride of triumph, I was too tired to celebrate. Earlier, on the long march, I had had a message from John Hutnyk, he had commented on my worried post about antisemitism. Writing this has reminded me I must write back.

I think the talk at The Peckham Space went well enough although several times I forgot whether it was I or Annabel speaking. Everyone was very welcoming quickly organising my images’ appearance on large screens in the gallery via a process akin to the Golden Shot. In the office one person had to move the mouse under instruction from another in an adjacent room “Up a bit, left, left, up, right, left, click”. This seemed to be perfectly normal procedure so, being in a foreign land, I ignored it. This done I was given a small remote control unit and threatened (quite severely) lest I accidentally take it home. All this so that I could display photos of cats, bats, dirty feet (a Tarantino favourite) and sideburns.

In no time at all, The final picture of Mr Pig was up and the questions began. The audience was made up of an interesting mixture of artists and bored looking students who perhaps already knew that blogging was not for the successful. With the help of a little bunch of allies (thanks Annabel, Rosalind & Kate) Aliceson Andrew and I survived although I became more and more aware, as time went on, that (as with most images of the pig) she was posing on my groin. As we went on, in my mind, my groin grew larger and larger until it filled the screen, but I don’t think anyone else saw it.

Spring Time for Hitler and Germany

It is grey, so grey. It is the morning of the Artists Talking talk, I have a sore throat. It may be an artist croaking. Also as part a long tradition of public appearance mishaps I have developed a huge cankerous scab above my eyebrow. It is a cage fighting wound and while the Over Forties Academics Cage Fighting Association of Ipswich (OFACFAI) is not exactly in the premiere league, injuries do happen. My OFACFAI name is The Shrew, I am bitter to the core, and when I remove my glasses and squint across the ring I am sure if I could see that I would see fear in my opponent’s eyes (though due to thumb weakness my gouge is not what it used to be). But this morning I am bruised more emotionally than physically.

Yesterday I performed a little art sociallising in Ipswich. Not always the easiest thing to do but yesterday Eastern Pavilions had come to town. First there was a talk by painters in a show O Painters! My Painters! curated by Kaavous Clayton.

It was evident that Romanticism was alive and well in the world of painting with much talk of struggle and machismo a gogo. I am biased but I was pleased when Annabel challenged a few of these ideas. Later we went to an opening of another Pavilions event in the new studios being set up in the old ‘O’ block of Suffolk New College (now UCS). I used to teach there and remember fondly being spat upon by the catering students on the balcony above. There was some interesting work tucked discretely around the edges and a table tennis table in the centre where I worked on rehabilitation my own machismo with a fellow redundant Andrew Vass (he won with superior spin). There later still I heard second hand that a member of staff at Firstsite had be offended by my presentation of Operation Pusscat. It was, he felt, anti-semitic. I am assuming that the areas he felt most uneasy with were, the gassing of a section of the population and my Pearl Art Prize logo (pictured below).

I am not going to say much about this as I have no claims that my choice of imagery was particularly deep or clever, I also felt that the whole project was sufficiently self-undermining to make the point that it was not made to slaughter a down trodden group but instead to highlight a number of issues relating to funding and success in the UK art scene. I am also not going to claim some sort of immunity due to Jewish ancestry. I remember a revelation when I was about 12. I was listening to an interview with David Byrne and he was explaining how he had assumed “a voice” (my quotes) to write Psycho Killer. These weren’t his own feelings, it wasn’t him speaking. “Wow”, I thought, “that’s clever”, the idea that he was able to voice a point of view other than his own was amazing to me (I was about 12).

The other issue is whether it can ever be right to evoke horrible events in our history in art or humour (sly Adorno quote noted). Should such events only be treated in one way (seriousness and dread) should there be an omerta?

I saw, last night while in a depression that Himmler’s postcards to his mother had gone on sale. I wonder what he wrote while killing 6 million people.

To Blog or Not to Blog

As I type I am monitoring Twitter, the Art world’s two Susan Jones are about to meet. Could this be our first real chance to see the god particle? or will the world just end?

Until yesterday evening I was completely stumped as to what I should say at the forthcoming Artists Talking event at Peckham Space tomorrow. I have to make a 15 minute intro before fielding questions (I assume) about blogging. In my indecision I decided to go with the Bard and get Annabel to do it. So last night she wrote about my blogs for me and this morning she skipped off to work singing with flowers in her hair. I may have unleashed a beast, she has said things I may have glossed over, but we shall see. I am a little suspicious that, if I am being called upon to talk about something, it is probably already over. Doesn’t everyone blog now? or tweet, or put embarrassing photographs up on Facebook? Clicking five times on the “next blog” (on blogger) at the top of the screen got me a Phd writing health food nut, a cat loving New Yorker, a chatty christian house wife, Cookie recipes and a home for children with Aids in Mexico. With such a lack of irony in the blogging world (sample of 5) no wonder some artists are wary. My blogger sample (I clicked on another 10 times) was also relentlessly Christian (and American), I had to stop when I came to the title “God is Doing a New Thing” it sounded like a report on a traumatised chimpanzee. On the other hand I like being reminded that writing a blog is really not cool. Is “cool” cool? Annabel has laughed many times at my continued utilisation of the cutting edge word “trendy” and I refuse to type “whoop” as I suspect that it is already out of date.

At least here on on Artists Talking there is something of a captive audience of fellow bloggers stimming away in our adjacent cages.

Is WordPress is cooler?

This is all prevarication, I must get on, the kitchen bin needs emptying, I have a job application to write, parcels to collect and a form to deliver to the bank.

I have been Googled by Greater Manchester PoliceLast night Mr Pig performed the five point palm exploding heart technique on my blog writing app. At least she stood on my phone and it has not functioned since. So I am back to he laptop typing with fingers instead of thumbs. This is probably a blessing in disguise as my thumbs, frankly, are wrecked. At this time of year an old war wound flares up and I begin to lose their use. Such an evolutionary regression is not too debilitating though some do like to make jokes. I have finished reading Greybeard which ended satisfactorily without fanfare or conclusion. Things go on much as they were before, Aldiss seems to view the future with the sort of phlegmatic resignation to which I aspire. Today has been a housework day. I tackled the kitchen first and then moved around the house armed with a duster until my enthusiasm and the polish sputtered to a finish (fairly quickly). There are new projects coming into view in the near and nearish future. First I have to deliver that talk in Peckham with Aliceson. I think I am supposed to be making some sort of presentation upon the merits of blogging (and twitter). Tomorrow will be soon enough for that. Next, in December, I have been invited to show at The Monks Gallery in Lincoln and am negotiating growing cress in their carpet. They seem keen but then I mentioned staining and watering. Beyond that lies Northampton a town existing in the grey reaches of time and space.

That was yesterday, or even the day before, I am not sure. I have got no further on my talk, it may have to be a last minute thing. I have slept much of today only waking to frighten the USPS man and to give Kaavous some work for Eastern Pavilions which opens this Friday in Norwich. I had completely forgotten about it but manage to scrape together a more or less coherent body of work and magic some prices up.

Tomorrow I must enter my residency space again, everythig will be dead, I am beginning to enjoy this eternal round of death and rebirth (and death) and wonder on which note it will end. Last night we watched “Never Let Me Go” based on the Kazuo Ishiguro novel, we both had to lie quietly for a while afterwards clinging to each other. Kaavous said it was the right time for apocalyptic thoughts but tonnight I am determined to watch something jolly. Having said that I have also decided that to up the intellectual content of future posts that my reading will concentrate on a blend of Calvino and Debord so the future may not be all roses and wine.

I need more cress and have found a bulk supplier on eBay, how many seeds are in a kilo?