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Oven-ready Who or what is this Jonathan Jones, that makes so much noise so early in the morning, perched a-top the compost heap in the corner of the Guardian art-yard? Some sort of Cock I suppose, though quite what sort is hard to tell, a Gingernut perhaps; a Booted Bantam; a Frizzle; a Welsh Dumpy? It hardly matters. But, goodness, he’s pleased with himself. See how he struts, and just hark how he crows. How about this: ìCritics are born, not made. I don’t know why I became convinced that I had more to say about art than other people, and an opinion that mattered more than most.î Nor do we, Cocky. ìBut I did decide that, and persuaded others to listen.î I’m not so sure about that last bit. And there’s more: ìthe short-list that I have co-selected as a judge of the 2009 Turner Prize has been unusually well-received.î Good on you, Johnny Boy: have a cigar, or coconut. ìSo say what you like, my taste in new art is apparently pretty good.î Well yes, perhaps, and then again Ö But let’s have more from the Cock’s own beak. ìWhen I say Hirst is a great artist and that Ron Mueck, Marc Quinn and Banksy are cheap, I do think my opinion is true ... and that anyone who thinks otherwise is lacking in acuity.î Poor old Cock-a-doodle. He would seem to be a terminal case. One for the pot, even. It would be a kindness, really. An acute shortlist So who are in line to be this year’s Prize Turkey? Four little birds we’ve never heard of: 1. Enrico David – ìa contemporary surrealist who creates rich and profoundly original painting, drawing and sculpture (who could doubt it) which are disconcerting (of course), confrontational (of course) and beautiful (why there’s a surprise).î 2. Roger Hiorns – ìcreates arresting sculpture and installation combining unusual materials (yawn). His exploration of chemical processes took spectacular effect in ‘Seizure’, in which a derelict flat in South London was filled with liquid copper sulphate, which after a period of time encrusted every surface with blue crystals.î I remember something like that happening in General Science, not altogether on purpose. It took ages to scrape off. 3. Lucy Skaer – ìmakes drawings, sculptures and films which often take found photographic sources as their starting point (really?). Skaer’s images hover in space between recognition and ambiguity, figuration and abstraction.î I somehow feared they might. 4. Richard Wright – ìcreates subtle and exquisite wall paintings that respond directly to the architecture in which they are created (need one say more?).î So no wonder Jonesey is so Cock-a-Hoopy-Doodle, knee-deep in all that originality and arresting ambiguity and exquisite profundity, to say nothing of the acuity. It makes an Old Owl feel quite out of it. World affairs I know it’s good that the young have the interests of the World so much at heart, and have such deep knowledge of all its ways, and with all their experience and understanding know just what to do, if only we would give them the chance. And perhaps we should. But then again, perhaps not quite yet. You see, there seems to be an awful lot of cawing and crowing coming from Zoom Art, a sort of Rookery up a tree in Hoxton (and we all know what a nuisance young rooks can be). And from what I can make out the inmates seem to be planning some sort of coup to coincide with the Global Art Summit: i.e. The Frieze Art Fair. What these young birds – 15 artists (sic), and their 2 curators, Alexander Dallal (anyone?) and Xerxes (*!) Cook (no? no-one you know?) – have in mind is a ‘Project’ they call ‘The Embassy’, ìa parody of outmoded cultural diplomacyî no less, in which they are to take what was the Embassy of Sierra Leone in Portland Place. And filled with ‘artworks’, it is going to make us all sit up on our perches, and really think a bit, it really will. Here we go, and follow closely. 'As the internet allows the art, culture and news reportage of countries to become ever more accessible to each other, what were once bastions of this exchange – the embassies of countries wishing to create a dialogue with their host nation – now retreat behind metres (sic) of concrete, becoming fortresses of espionage.' Golly. ìGlobalisation has rendered the sometimes patronising kind of cultural exchange once conducted by embassies dated (I had no idea).Yet, occupying a privileged position apart from their host nation – indeed retaining their sovereignty in a foreign land – these buildings and their interiors provide a revealing glimpse of how a country chooses to represent itself abroad.' No, no: I haven’t made it up: I couldn’t. And there’s more. ìA pastiche of the manner in which embassies promote their culture - works from over (?) fifteen artists will speak of themes relevant to the mismanagement of a country – greed, egotism, repression, theocracy, malnutrition, gluttony, tyranny, currency, geography and sex. So now we know. Obvious really, once it’s all pointed out. And isn’t it wonderful, the history they teach them in schools nowadays. But I hadn’t realized geography is now one of the new 10 deadly sins. Perhaps global warming has something to do with it: or is it just that pretty teacher, with the long legs and horn-rim glasses, who was new last term at the village school. I'll have to have a word with the Vicar. Or do they mean ‘geography and sex’? Sounds like an interesting combined degree at one of the newer universities. Easy enough to do well at, I should imagine. The eagle and the sparrow What’s all this? It’s that little Sparrow Damian in the Academy barnyard, hopping around the ankles of grizzled old John Hoyland, chirping away, pecking up a few crumbs and not listening to a word the old bird says. Watch out for that beak, I’d say, and mind those talons. Poor young Spicky Dicky: he seems to think that Art is all about having such things as ‘Ideas’, and ‘Style’, and ‘Keeping Up’. And his grasp on the history of these things seems very shaky. One day the penny will drop, we hope – all we can do really. But let’s listen. Spicky: 'How long were you in New York?' Old Bird: ìOff and on for about 5 years.î S: ìSo that was when Johns and Warhol and everybody were pulling in the other direction with Pop. Rothko was kind of old-fashhioned.î OB: 'But I must finish my story about Rothko.' A little later: S: ìAs I say, I was really surprised at the size of your work in that period. In interviews (hahaha: sorry, it’s my throat)) I’ve always said that it was when I came on the scene (Year Zero?), with Saatchi, that the scale got bigger. Before Saatchi, it was Cork Street, and there were these little paintings. Even Peter Blake (oh that ‘even’) was doing small paintingsÖ How many paintings were you doing in those years?' OB: 'Around 80 pictures a year'. S: 'Yes, that’s not too bad. Warhol did 10,000, I think. Don't worry, I’ve done way more than 80 this year! (!!**?!) So what were you about when you were painting in those days? Were you into that kind of transcendental thing, like Rothko?' Oh dear: I don’t think I can look. OB: 'I think all great paintings have a kind of metaphysical dimension ' Time passes: S: 'I always had so many ideas. Now that I am painting more directly I wonder if all the paintings I’ve done, like the spin paintings, are about a sort of imaginary mechanical painter, like a machine that paints. And that there are were ways for me to avoid actual painting. I think maybe I was scared of it.' OB: 'Yes.' S: 'When I started painting again I wanted to do just black and white, but instead I just went for blue and white. I always loved those early Bacon paintings that used Prussian blue.' OB: ìRight.î S: 'I’ve started bringing colour in now, but slowly. I’ve one rule. Whatever I’m painting - it’s got to look good, that it’s not something I’m embarrassed with. You know, when you sort of draw a pencil line and you go, oh, don’t worry I’ll get the paint covering it quickly and then it’ll be all right?' OB: 'Yes.' S: 'I thought - it’s like this painting’s got to look great at every stage somehow' OB: 'You’ve got to be prepared to lose the painting too.' Well, whatever else, you can’t say Spicky doesn’t live dangerously. An Ancient Mariner That dear old Albatross, Frank Auerbach, who seems to have been winging his solitary flight across the muddy reaches of Old Father Thames all these years – the muddier the prospect the better – seems to be forgetting himself somewhat nowadays, though you’d hardly blame him at his great age, for we all know how difficult things can be, especially when being pestered all the time by Feaver birds, some sort of budgerigar, always taking notes and asking questions – how much paint do you put on your brush: do you mix it up thoroughly, or take it as it comes: do you like to take a run at it, or do you sit down? You never know where you are. All very confusing. Anyway, according to little Geordie Grouse, flying in from the moors to report in the Standard, the Frankatross has just wrung our heartstrings by a most affecting confession. It seems he never had a bank account until he was 50, and for so many years never knew where the next tube of yellow ochre would come from. Poor thing: we do understand. Well, he is 78 now, so that takes us back to 1981, I think, and, goodness me, it wasn’t until all of 1986 that he represented Britain at the Venice Biennale with the Padiglione to himself, so something must have clicked pretty quick. And, gosh, here I have, mouldering away on a dingy shelf deep in the old ivy-mantl’d tow’r, a few of his Marlborough catalogues going back well into the 70s, and even the 60s, when we and Frank were young and all. Though, knowing old Frank, I begin to think he was 50 something from the moment he was born. Some people are like that, like Florence Craye, the modern novelist, who was ìsteeped to the gills in serious purposeî, as a bird for whom I have the deepest respect once put it. Perhaps that’s the trouble. Perhaps he should get out more. Help I fear I need just a little help with a scrap of paper that has blown by on that sharp East Wind from Dalston marshes. It’s from somewhere called V22, and is about a show by a denizen of those plashy fens, an Irish Water Vole or Shrew, perhaps, called Fergal Stapleton, and I can’t make head nor tail of it. Staplegun’s art, its says, ìseems to be created from an outstanding sense of stillness (you see what I mean?), but one that is not closed to dextrous flecks of humour, elegances of poetry, darknesses of tragedy or beauties of dust (whew: thank goodness for that: you had me worried for a moment). The sense of bravery it exudes (you can get a cream for that, you know, from Boots) on behalf of its maker is one which reminds us that here is the central business of the thing: that art is not the multitude of causes and commentaries it is often mistaken for (you can say that again, though I’d rather you didn’t): it is rather the navigation of all that is most expansive in human nature.î Dear me. Are you any the wiser: or is it just me? Navigation eh? Bloody marvellous What this? A Blood-Transfusion Van seems to be parked outside the National Portrait Gallery, and goodness, what a flurry of preening and puffing there is, and what loud squawks of pride and pleasure are coming from the branches of the trees outside. What can it all be about? Can it be true? Oh dear, I’m afraid it is. For here is our old friend Sandy, Chief Booby at the NPG, as happy as a duck in muck, and Temporary Chief Booby of the Art Fund, one Andy Macdonald, no less cheerful and looking for all the world like Neville Chamberlain, as he waves what looks like a cheque or postal order in the air. So what have Sandy and Andy been up to this time? Another masterpiece saved for the Nation, perhaps? Yes indeed. ìAn outstanding acquisition – a major icon of contemporary British art, both startling and revealing,î trills Boob. ìThis challenging and disquieting work Ö [which] stretches the notion of what portraiture can beî, adds McBoob, stretching a notion farther than a notion really should be stretched. For what it is – and I’m so sorry to have to tell you this – is that, this being a recession and all, and a special offer therefore being something no responsible Booby could possibly pass up, the Art Fund has coughed up £100,000 to enable the NPG to acquire said ‘major icon’. And said icon is the latest version of ‘Self’ by Marc Quinn, an ornamental fowl ìwhose work raises many questions about identity and the nature of portraiture, questions which go close to the heart of the work of the NPG.î So there you are, and don’t you go asking any awkward questions, such as ìwhat are the answers?î This ‘Self’, of course, is not a sculpture exactly, no boring old modelling from observation and all that stuff, but a simple life-cast of the Quinn head, though with his own blood taking the place of the more usual plaster, or bronze, and frozen so as not to run out of the mould and go all over the place. I suppose he could have used ice-cream or soup instead, though I can see that wouldn’t have had quite the same – how shall I say – appeal. Anyway, all you do, apparently, is smother yourself with Vaseline, stuff a straw up your nose or beak, wait for the plaster to dry and chip yourself out again. Little Quinn makes one of these casts every five years or so, once he’s filled up again, ìdocumenting his own transformation and ageingî would you believe, and this recent example had been made available by Farmer Jay up at White Cube Gables, at a knock-down price of £300,000. So you can see what I mean about a bargain. Even the Henry Moore Heritage Farm has chipped in its two-pennyworth, and every little helps, though it would be interesting to know what old Gaffer Henry himself might have had to say about it all. As for the goose Quinny, there’s no stopping him. ìTo me this sculpture came from wanting to push portraiture to an extreme, a representation which not only has the form of the sitter, but is actually made of the sitter’s flesh. It only exists in certain conditions, in this case being frozen, analogous to me with a person being alive.î Oh dear: past help I fear. Timmy Marlow, one of the yokels up at the Gables, is to talk calmly to Quinny at the NPG one evening. I should get your ticket now. Prize turkeys II It’s not just the Turner Turkeys themselves, poor things, who, to be fair, are only hoping Christmas comes early for one of them this year, nor even Cocky Doodle Jonesey, the critic bird (sic) responsible for plucking them out, and so pleased with himself: it’s what really we guessed all along, that Farmer Nick’s little gaggle of curator-chicks are just as bad, if not worse. A scrap of paper from the Standard has just flown by on the wind from Millbank, bringing home to me the full wonder and enormity of it all. Here’s what one of those prize chickabids, Lizzie Carey-Thomas has to say about it all, now that the Prize Shortlist Show is open. ìAll of the artists are working very closely with their materialsî, she gravely clucks. Gosh. I’d have thought a bit of paint on the end a brush was pretty close, or a fistful of clay, but then what do I know. ìThere is a theme of constantly transforming imagesî she goes on, but I’m afraid she’s rather lost me there. One of the Turkeys, one Roger Hiorns – yes, that’s right, The Roger Hiorns – ìuses industrial processes in his work (oh dear, here we go).î It seems he’s spread a heap of metal powder from a scrapped aeroplane all over the place. ìThe jet engine was atomised by a procedure used to recycle engine parts.î Lucky him: in the old days he’d have had to use a brillo pad and a hacksaw, I expect. ìThe fact that it’s a jet engine taps into our fears of flying and fears of technology,î she cheeps. Well, if you say so, my Dear. My fear is being unable to flap my stiff old wings, this damp weather. ìThe other artists are looking at the idea of a transformation in their work in different ways.î I should jolly well hope they are. Miss Carey-Chick, we are told, believes the Turkey Prize ìhas helped popularise contemporary art to the general pupil (yes; the general pupil) Ö When it started (25 years ago) it was quite a small elitist world and it has gone on to make British art important and significant today.î Where do they find them? | |||||
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Moping Owl All of this site is | |||||
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