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More philosophising

The reason why contemporary art is so boring and sterile today is basically because about 40 years ago, with the new ushering in of post-modernist and post-structuralist thought, which was all about deconstructing and destroying the idea of the genius, the masterful, the great, the heroic, the values of the old high art tradition. Ever since Duchamp put the urinal in the gallery and called it ‘fountain’ to mock the renaissance image of a cherub peeing into the fountain, that was when it was over for the very noble high art tradition. So that’s basically why contemporary art looks so boring and samey, because that gesture changed cultural theory and has had a death grip on what people unquestioningly accept as ‘edgy’ or ‘transgressive’ for the past 40 years. That’s why you’re not getting any Michelangelo’s or Dali's today.

What I’m trying to dramatise in my work is that oppositional art which Duchamp and then Andy Warhol spearheaded is now mainstream. If its now mainstream, it can’t be oppositional, right? If everyone’s doing plastic tits in a shopping trolley and ‘my two year old could have done that’ its not really oppositional anymore, who are you opposing? You are the mainstream, you are the precise reason why no-one has any respect for the art world at the moment. That’s why the funding is so low, etc. So now that oppositional art is mainstream, what is oppositional, what is rebellious?

Think of that song ‘sympathy for the devil’ by the Rolling Stones. How does the famous refrain go? ‘Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and taste’. The devil was a patron and connoisseur, he was a big bad cultural chauvinist. If you want to be rebellious, if you want to side with the devil, so to speak, you have to be a tastemaker, you have to be a purveyor of high art. Even though it’s a classicist idea, it’s ironically more countercultural in the literal sense of the word because it is literally counter to the current culture which is shot through with shallow ironies and nihlism.

I'm not necessarily that the ultimate transgression would be to be Michelangelo, I think it’s more subtle than that, because that would be a very obvious example of patriarchal, transcendental high art. I think Dali is a good inspiration because he appropriated the techniques of the renaissance high art tradition and used it to create a new aesthetic order that was unlike anything anyone had seen before. Or another good example would be the black mass ritual in Eyes Wide Shut, where they perform a satanic ritual in a Christian place of worship to heighten the transgression. It would be strangely less transgressive to perform it in a satanic church. Just like there’s no transgression or taboo in putting a piece of shock art in a place that has already unquestioningly accepted oppositional art as de-facto rebellious. In order for you to rebel you need to have something to rebel against. When the dominant form of engagement with art in modernity is ironic detachment and snark, oppositional art of the Duchamp and Warhol kind isn't really edgy anymore.

What Dali and Eyes Wide Shut have in common is that they weren’t trying to deconstruct or destroy the idea of greatness or genius, the divinely inspired, the precepts that would have inspired the very noble high art tradition, but they were perverting or queering it in some way. They were saying I like what you did there God, nice job, but let me have a crack at it, I can do it better. So instead of constantly reaching and building up towards God by creating the Sistine Chapel, it’s bringing down to earth and to humans. So above, so below. It’s about humans taking on the attributes of divinity and becoming Gods themselves.

So if you watch the ritual in Eyes Wide Shut, they’re not outright burning and pissing on crosses, and sneering at the idea of masterful or the genius, it’s more subtle than that. So first of all, they perform the satanic ritual in a Christian church, appropriating the regalia of Catholicism, and the song that they play is actually a Christian chant played in reverse.

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Camille Paglia: Avenging Angel of Oppositional Art

Paglia is an enormous influence for me as an artist. She makes the case that in modernity people are basically scraping the bottom of the barrel for the subversive gesture, so you end up with these cynical, gimmicky forms of oppositional art which have had a death grip on the art world and cultural theory for the past 40 years and its why modern art is basically so boring and sucks so much. 

And what she says is that maybe our entire form of interaction with art is completely wrong, we don't notice it because we've got cultural blindspots and we aren't sensitive to larger historical patterns in a way that she is, but maybe what's needed is an entire paradigm shift. When the dominant form of engagement with art in modernity is ironic detachment, the idea of the genius, the masterful, whatever is patriarchal hocus-pocus, maybe something’s gone horribly wrong, maybe it means that being the polar opposite to that, being a big bad cultural chauvinist is ironically more countercultural. The active re-introduction and identification with ultimate truths, anti-modern values, the will to power, that which has been disavowed by contemporary theory, is demonic, it is satanic, it is evil.

I try to actively dramatise the fact that the 'oppositional' gesture, i.e. duchamp's urinal, plastic tits in a shopping trolley is not only spiritually and intellectually empty, but its now mainstream, so its not oppositional anymore.

 The idea that that kind of art 'interrogates' or 'challenges' is simply bullshit. Give me a break. What do people think of when they think of modern art? They think of feather boas draped over concrete blocks, they think of 'my two year old could have done that'. What're you opposing? You are the mainstream now. Want to make something that genuinely shocks people? Why not create something genius? Why not create a masterpiece? People forget that the devil was afterall a man of wealth and taste... Now that question of genius and greatness is incredibly controversial. Now you're getting people riled up. THERE's your taboo.

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Pigeon eyeshadow diptych

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Loife drawing

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Manifesto

Art in late capitalism:

If it can be said that the role of the artist is to be able to contain and cultivate within them their own multitudes of emotions and experiences, they who reassert their unique sensibility onto the world, it can be said that this role is somewhat in crisis. Before computers, if you wanted to allay a sad feeling, you would be spurred to write a song, a poem, cast a spell. This is the basic, earliest essence of art: incantation, divination, magic. However now every emotion can essentially be infinitely outsourced to a vast, vampiric media machine, a rigged arcade grab machine that robotically follows the co-ordinates of human impulses and desire. If you feel sad, you can watch a sad movie, it you feel romantic, you can watch a rom com on netflix, etc.

Rather than the swashbuckling idea of the artist who takes up the great task of reasserting their sensibility and will onto the world, gracefully guiding and directing their will with the cosmos, artists seem to be disappearing and shrinking away from the world, and are doing their work as a distraction or incidental commentary on the world, a distraction from existential concerns.

Now that we are living in a late capitalist phase of culture where we are so bombarded with so many types of media and advertising, art seems to be split into two camps: on the one hand, extreme negation, i.e., minimalism, abstraction and then extreme excess and chaos and decadence on the other hand, moving in flow with the general feel of the culture.

Capitalism humanises objects and objectifies humans. Capitalism wields as status symbols the sacred totems and fetish objects of artists, shamans and holy men.

Love

Love is the one cliché which is actually true. A cliché is something that everyone says but no one really means/or feels. Something that has been said so many times but to have lost its meaning. For example you say you love your mum but you never help her with the washing up. I should interject here to distinguish familial/romantic love. In familial love you come into this world reliant on a parent figure and so have no control over it whereas with romantic love you go from seeing someone as a stranger with no emotional connection to falling in love with them. Love is when the merely metaphorical or the poetic becomes literal. You would literally die for someone. Love, light, sunshine, butterflies, birds with gilded rainbows for wings and unicorns and all the glorious things in life, that you think are only myths, suddenly become the only things which become real and true to you.

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As long as soul is of flesh and flesh is of body a soul can grow back

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working on a 3D animation of Joan Miró’s Harlequin’s Carnival

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Now people's intimate lives are being broadcasted on an international scale, this has the effect of introducing a reflexivity to one's sex life, making something that should be private and intimate into a socialised act for the rest of the world to see. In the UK we have TV shows like 'Love Island' and 'First Dates' which function as matchmaking shows. With First Dates, a whole country is privy to a couple on their first date, essentially usurping the traditional idea of the nationally treasured 'prince' and 'princess'. So now instead it's the producers who usurp the role of the 'patriarch' who siphon off their children for an arranged marriage. So I guess its no longer those of a royal lineage who partake in this process, its the rest of the world. It's been decentralised.

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With painting at Pest Fest at Arcola Threatre

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The latent vampirism of voyeurism

I was up at university in my second year and I had just finished painting ‘Medusa’s Gaze’. My tutor Duncan got the memo that I was big on this whole feminist reclamation of the ‘male gaze’ and recommended these video artists called Salla Tykka and Omer Fast. Salla Tykka does thoughtful but ultimately a bit self indulgent exercises in magic realist films and Omer Fast does these documentary style films about trauma. I had a moment of horror when I realised this how he really saw me and the way I think. Up until this moment I think I had quite strongly identified with the position of the voyeur, and had more or less equated that with dominance, control, power, etc. But now I realise there’s something incredibly passive about the position of the voyeur. It’s not a generative process. You’re watching your life go by, you’re not controlling the narrative or jumping into action. You’re just sitting there, you’re not the one whose instigating the magic or the thrill. I think when I go back I want to experiment a lot more with more surreal, experimental stuff.

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Lamb brisket was the ticket for the gifted, offered a quick fix for all the elliptics, quick stop at quik fit then onto the next gig. Cecil Green could be seen pandamoming moment-toming post-coloning wherever the most gorgonzoling home links to cattle shrinks and a sea urchin winks to let you know that yes, your breath stinks

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Cheech and Chong knew all along whether they were hangers on to some ancient bird-song or whether the comers-on brought commerce on enthralled by all of the wanton scones pretending to be almost done

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late capitalism conjecture

now that we're living in a late capitalist phase of culture where we are so bombarded with so many types of media, art seems to be split into two camps: on the one hand, extreme negation, i.e. minimalism, abstraction and then extreme excess and chaos and decadence

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