Stuckism () is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting as opposed to conceptual art."Glossary: Stuckism", Tate. Retrieved 16 September 2009."The Stuckists Punk Victorian", Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool. Retrieved 15 November 2008. By May 2017, the initial group of 13 British artists had expanded to 236 groups in 52 countries."Stuckism International", stuckism.com. Retrieved 22 May 2017.
Childish and Thomson have issued several manifestos. The first one was The Stuckists, consisting of 20 points starting with "Stuckism is a quest for authenticity".The Stuckists manifesto, stuckism.com. Retrieved 17 November 2011. Remodernism, the other well-known manifesto of the movement, opposes the deconstruction and irony of postmodernism in favor of what Stuckists refer to as the "spirituality" of the artist.Art Glossary: Remodernism , about.com. Retrieved 17 November 2011. In another manifesto they define themselves as anti-anti-art"Stuck on the Turner Prize", artnet, 27 October 2000. Retrieved 17 November 2011. which is against anti-art and for what they consider conventional art.
After exhibiting in small galleries in Shoreditch, London, the Stuckists' first show in a major public museum was held in 2004 at the Walker Art Gallery, as part of the Liverpool Biennial. The group has demonstrated annually at Tate Britain against the Turner Prize since 2000, sometimes dressed in clown costumes. They have also come out in opposition to the Charles Saatchi-patronised Young British Artists.Stuckism, Artist Biographies website.The Turner Prize's most controversial moments, 20 October 2011, The Telegraph website.
Although painting is the dominant artistic form of Stuckism, artists using other media such as photography, sculpture, film and collage have also joined, and share the Stuckist opposition to conceptualism and "ego-art.""Stuckism International: The Stuckist Decade 1999–2009", Robert Janás, Victoria Press , 2009, a: p.73 - b: p.64, .
Name, founding and origin
The name "Stuckism" was coined in January 1999 by Charles Thomson in response to a poem read to him several times by Billy Childish. In it, Childish recites that his former girlfriend, Tracey Emin had said he was "stuck! stuck! stuck!" with his art, poetry and music.Thomson, Charles (August 2004), "A Stuckist on Stuckism: Stella Vine", from: Ed. Frank Milner (2004), The Stuckists Punk Victorian, pp. 7–9, National Museums Liverpool, . Available online at "The Two Starts of Stuckism" and "The Virtual Stuckists" on stuckism.com. Later that month, Thomson approached Childish with a view to co-founding an art group called Stuckism, which Childish agreed to, on the basis that Thomson would do the work for the group, as Childish already had a full schedule.
There were eleven other founding members: Philip Absolon, Frances Castle, Sheila Clark, Eamon Everall, Ella Guru, Wolf Howard, Bill Lewis, Sanchia Lewis, Joe Machine, Sexton Ming, and Charles Williams. The membership has evolved since its founding through creative collaborations:"Stuckism: Introduction", stuckism.com. Retrieved 18 October 2009. the group was originally promoted as working in paint, but members have since worked in various other media, including poetry, fiction, performance, photography, film and music.
In 1979, Thomson, Childish, Bill Lewis and Ming were members of the Medway Poets performance group, to which Absolon and Sanchia Lewis had earlier contributed. Peter Waite's Rochester Pottery staged a series of solo painting shows. In 1982, TVS broadcast a documentary on the poets. That year, Emin, then a fashion student, and Childish started a relationship; her writing was edited by Bill Lewis, printed by Thomson and published by Childish. Group members published dozens of works. The poetry group dispersed after two years, reconvening in 1987 to record The Medway Poets LP. Clark, Howard and Machine became involved over the following years. Thomson got to know Williams, who was a local art student and whose girlfriend was a friend of Emin; Thomson also met Everall. During the foundation of the group, Ming brought in his girlfriend, Guru, who in turn invited Castle.
Manifestos
In August 1999, Childish and Thomson wrote The Stuckists manifesto which stress the value of painting as a medium, its use for communication, and the expression of emotion and experience – as opposed to what Stuckists see as the superficial novelty, nihilism and irony of conceptual art and postmodernism. The most contentious statement in the manifesto is: "Artists who don't paint aren't artists".Stuckists, scourge of BritArt, put on their own exhibition Sarah Cassidy, The Independent, 23 August 2006,
The second and third manifestos, An Open Letter to Sir Nicholas Serota and Remodernism respectively, were sent to the director of the Tate, Nicholas Serota. He sent a brief reply: "Thank you for your open letter dated 6 March. You will not be surprised to learn that I have no comment to make on your letter, or your manifesto 'Remodernism'.""An open letter to Sir Nicholas Serota", stuckism.com, 1999. Retrieved 20 May 2007
In the Remodernism manifesto, the Stuckists declared that they aimed to replace postmodernism with remodernism, a period of renewed spiritual (as opposed to religious) values in art, culture and society. Other manifestos have included Handy Hints, Anti-anti-art, The Cappuccino writer and the Idiocy of Contemporary Writing, The Turner Prize, The Decreptitude of the Critic and Stuckist critique of Damien Hirst.
In Anti-anti-art, the Stuckists outlined their opposition to what is known as "anti-art". Stuckists claim that conceptual art is justified by the work of Marcel Duchamp, but that Duchamp's work is "anti-art by intent and effect". The Stuckists feel that "Duchamp's work was a protest against the stale, unthinking artistic establishment of his day", while "the great (but wholly unintentional) irony of postmodernism is that it is a direct equivalent of the conformist, unoriginal establishment that Duchamp attacked in the first place".
Manifestos have been written by other Stuckists, including the Students for Stuckism group. An "Underage Stuckists" group was founded in 2006 with a manifesto for teenagers written by two 16-year-olds, Liv Soul and Rebekah Maybury, on MySpace."The Underage Stuckists Manifesto", stuckism.com. Retrieved 25 April 2006 In 2009, a group calling itself the Other Muswell Hill Stuckists published The Founding, Manifesto and Rules of the Other Muswell Hill Stuckists.
Growth in the UK
In July 1999, the Stuckists were first mentioned in the media, in an article in The Evening Standard and soon gained other coverage, helped by press interest in Tracey Emin, who had been nominated for the Turner Prize.Stuckism news 1999, stuckism.com. Retrieved 30 August 2011.
The first Stuckist show was Stuck! Stuck! Stuck! in September 1999 in Joe Crompton's in Shoreditch Gallery 108 (now defunct), followed by The Resignation of Sir Nicholas Serota. In 2000, they staged The Real Turner Prize Show at the same time as the Tate Gallery's Turner Prize exhibition.Turner Prize: a load of rubbish?, London Evening Standard, 24 October 2000. Retrieved 30 August 2011.
A "Students for Stuckism" group was founded in 2000 by students from Camberwell College of Arts, who staged their own exhibition. S.P. Howarth was expelled from the painting degree course at Camberwell college for his paintings,Alberge, Dalya, "Students accuse art college of failing to teach them the basics", The Times, p. 9, 8 July 2002. Online at stuckism.com. and had the first solo exhibit at the Stuckism International Gallery in 2002, named I Don't Want a Painting Degree if it Means Not Painting.S.P. Howarth, stuckism.com. Retrieved 30 August 2011.
Thomson stood as a Stuckist candidate for the 2001 British General Election, in the constituency of Islington South & Finsbury, against Chris Smith, the then Secretary of State for Culture. He picked up 108 votes (0.4%).Vote Stuckist 2001, stuckism.com. Retrieved 30 August 2011.Vote 2001, Islington South & Finsbury, BBC. Retrieved 30 August 2011. Childish left the group at this time because he objected to Thomson's leadership.Billy Childish On Stuckism, April 2004, trakmarx.com. Retrieved 13 September 2011.Billy Childish, stuckism.com. Retrieved 30 August 2011.
From 2002 to 2005, Thomson ran the Stuckism International Centre and Gallery in Shoreditch, London. In 2003, under the title A Dead Shark Isn't Art, the gallery exhibited a shark which had first been put on public display in 1989 (two years before Damien Hirst's) by Eddie Saunders in his Shoreditch shop, JD Electrical Supplies. It was suggested that Hirst may have seen this and copied it."A Dead Shark Isn't Art", stuckism.com. Retrieved 20 March 2006.
In 2003, they reported Charles Saatchi to the UK Office of Fair Trading, complaining that he had an effective monopoly on art. The complaint was not upheld."Charles Saatchi reported to OFT", stuckism.com. Retrieved 27 May 2006 In 2003, an allied group, Stuckism Photography, was founded by Larry Dunstan and Andy Bullock. In 2005, the Stuckists offered a donation of 175 paintings from the Walker show to the Tate; however, it was rejected by the Tate's trustees.How ageing art punks got stuck into Tate's Serota, The Guardian, 11 December 2005. Retrieved 30 August 2011.
In August 2005, Thomson alerted the press to the fact that the Tate had purchased a work by Chris Ofili, The Upper Room, for £705,000 while the artist was a serving Tate trustee.How ageing art punks got stuck into Tate's Serota, The Guardian, 11 December 2005."Tate buys trustee Chris Ofili's The Upper Room in secret £705,000 deal", stuckism.com. Retrieved 27 May 2006 Fraser Kee Scott, owner of A Gallery, demonstrated with the Stuckists outside the Tate Gallery against the gallery's purchase of The Upper Room. Scott said in The Daily Telegraph that the Tate Gallery's chairman, Paul Myners, was hypocritical for refusing to divulge the price paid. Ofili had asked other artists to donate work to the gallery.Walden, Celia. "Spy: Art-felt grumble", The Daily Telegraph, p. 22, 19 October 2008. In July 2006 the Charity Commission censured the gallery for acting outside its legal powers.Alberge, Dalya (2006) "Tate's Ofili purchase broke charity law" The Times online, 19 July 2006. Retrieved 8 April 2007 Sir Nicholas Serota stated that the Stuckists had "acted in the public interest".Front Row, BBC Radio 4, interview by Mark Lawson, 25 July 2006
In October 2006, the Stuckists staged their first exhibition, Go West, in a commercial West End gallery, Spectrum London; this signalled their entry as "major players" in the art world.Teodorczuk, Tom (2006) "Modern art is pants" London Evening Standard, 22 August 2006. Retrieved 9 October 2006 from thisislondon.co.uk.
An international symposium on Stuckism took place in October 2006 at the Liverpool John Moores University during the Liverpool Biennial. The programme was led by Naive John, founder of the Liverpool Stuckists. There was an accompanying exhibition in the 68 Hope Gallery at Liverpool School of Art and Design (John Moores University Gallery).Day 13th Oct "International Symposium on Stuckism", Independents Liverpool Biennial. Retrieved 30 August 2011.
By 2006, there were 63 Stuckist groups in the UK. Members include Naive John, Mark D, Elsa Dax, Paul Harvey, Jane Kelly, Udaiyan, Peter McArdle, Peter Murphy, Rachel Jordan, Guy Denning and Abby Jackson. John Bourne opened Stuckism Wales at his home, a permanent exhibition of (mainly Welsh) paintings. Mandy McCartin is a regular guest artist.Mandy McCartin, stuckism.com. Retrieved 30 August 2011.