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Let's try the flip side?



Stephen Hornsby-Smith

To the YBAs: stop behaving like a shareholder and behave like the trailblazer who still has fire in their belly!

Play havoc and teach a younger generation of Artists a lesson or two.They don't have to do Art school right?This is your real vocation, your raison detre, this is why you've sucked it up from morons to line people up to blitz the place. Arrest the 'fiddlesticks' and the 'imponderables' of the art circuit by contest. Money isn't an issue for you anymore, and you could do some lasting good for Art in this country. I'm not expecting Mr Microsoft', but you can make pen-pushers work for you and Art. When did hang-overs replace Art? When did Annie winter stop vogue voyeurs to make a play? Flush the crap out of the 'Art Pearled' by artistic colonoscopy! Break out of the grip of the Venice vultures! Turn burn-out to full fierce fight flame-throwing without having to raise your hand! Pounce on the pseuds and stop the Pontius Pilattes washing their hands in small beer whilst not lifting a finger but quite quite happy to unleash the thumb like Emperor Nero.They say don't struggle in quick sand, but why do we spend all that time on a struggle of class muddle, race gender, sex,age disabilty, issues of homophobia etc when there is little to be gained in a hollow victory or a pyhric failure? Can't we get on with the job? I'd prefer to not find new ways to hate each other, and purely finding new ways to alert people to new forms of discrimination is of secondary importance to fighting the struggle for life. No, not 'Life' the anti-abortion group, but the life free of prejudice and free of new forms of discrimination that we are creating because we can't bare the thought of life without them. Isn't that the real struggle - just let go? Art and social issues go better apart but nevertheless are pretty formidable as a partnership of doom. 21st century Britain is finding new social allergies or immunities from 'anti-biotics' that are meant to heal, but have made things worse!?! Intervention on Prozac is causing the NHS billions more every year. If you want to cure something you have to confront it. Even the industry of Art is all so worried not to rock the boat that it relies on a symbiotic relationship with bigots to pull everybody together to galvanise and find a common voice for the common good- the fight against bigotry? Fighting bigots is hard, but simple, but changing the Art weather seems impossible. Here is their unstoppable binary code. It comprises the esoteric wise men and women who get contemporary Art against a majority of plain clothed Art police of "You're having a laugh aren't you?" For me I'm bored with this 2 party system, their self-important swings and round about's bore the hell out of me. How can I explain?

Well let's start with the best Painter's in this country who are within the umbrella movement of conceptual Art. So why does Hurst and Emin hide behind the 90s work to dictate to them?Why can't these ex-painter's exp(l)ain ter us and take an approach that supersedes their former boss (Saatchi) ? If Saatchi twitched then Emin and Hurst lunged. Sure let's not get all nostalgic for the power he wielded and his putting Art on ice- the freeze fleas or Frieze or cube ?' Actually let's forget him altogether. Unlike the forgotten one Painting is self-determination and selfhood, something that the YBAs have extraordinary power and experience in. Drop the pact not to act-up! Get rid of the fleas. .Change gear open the throttle, jump start the old banger and to quote a lady "Move your arse!" Do the loop and start Painting! YBA or why be a conceptual Artist, 'stuckists of the 90s' lose your past when Painting is in front of you. Trap Art and life momentarily and observe it in the lab of the ring fenced (frame) canvas , now a window of possibilities, a time vent intensifying and getting hotter radiating energy and consuming all to explode on to the same universe of the canvas. Are we readying the science of the day to reflect the Painting medium? No? Aren't we ashes and dust, alpha to omega held together by gravity and space and matter?

Don't be ashamed of your roots or your mortality! Don't think that a canvas is a black hole either. It's a common mistake to eradicate something or kill the idea of something because we humans don't understand it, or it is too much of a risk to your career. Let's face it, we spend 40/45 years of our 80s plus lifespan putting everything on hold to develop our careers, but surely we have outgrown such limitations? Do take a bus ride and see all the 70 year old brigade shrunken in their seats ,wary of danger or threat because they are used to their mobility in their metallic Englishmen's castle to give them a sense of security as they part the tide of losers who hitherto have not got as far up the greasy pole as they have. What a come down! You know, I don't care whether they realise they are feeling guilt (because they've spent a lifetime looking down at people)or respite to be out of the mayhem of having to compete with a 20s something year old to keep your corporate job before you can access your pension at the age of 72.

Why spend all your time looking at the universe through a telescope or looking through a microscope to tell you what you should have gleaned already? No, sorry, that's the question for a Painter; they have experienced the extremes of the Abstract and the representative. The Painter mustn't fall for the either or but must find a way of describing the witness of life and passing all he/she knows so as to enlarge and liberate the capacity of experience of life to as many as possible, who too are locked in a confined space of their lives and their Art..In popular parlance, metachlorians (Star Wars) are balanced between the lightness and the darkness for the optimum experience for all in the gallaxies.. Why are we still having to show the Painter's light to the detracters Darkness? It's like exposing the Dark ages or exposing the tyranny of the Spanish inquisition to a 21st century audience. Even Stuart Pierce couldn't miss that open goal! Or not? You decide. But know that a spectrum of light has many colours blended with many shades that fully endorse a movement away from stasis or ennui of the status quo. Whilst this authoritarian enforced 'Painter's block' has polarized Artists, I would make the claim that Painting has the potential to especially have its finger on the human pulse and also have a finger print on all of life. However, this is manifested only if the move towards the light can be seen as many 'shades' of brilliant colour. Shouldn't we access this process of aesthetic evolution now that it combines and enhances the dark and the light to make Painting an authentic inspiration and not just a novelty act or a dot to dot splash of 'living in a French gites for a summer' exercise?


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