Justin McKeown
NOBODY GO ANYWHERE:
STAY HOME MAKE ART
A Manifesto
Since time immemorial the fame of ones name in other places has been a mark of ones success in ones chosen profession. This is particularly true of the arts, whose primary function is to entertain be it purely through beauty or something slightly more ‘deep’ such as intellectual musing or political comment. It is a truism that almost all young artists today who possess any ambition seek an international career in which their name, probably more than their art, will become internationally recognised.
What are the reasons for this? At one point in history it would have made a certain amount of business sense to be internationally known. You could be the IBM of the art world, selling every single painting, sculpture, video, drawing, installation, performance, other (delete as appropriate) you make for enough money to keep a small family from Ballymurphy in food and clothes for a year.
But these days most artists could hardly be said to conduct ‘business’ since for the most part the money they earn from exhibitions seems to be little more than the price of their ‘jollies’ while away with their artwork. This could hardly be called ‘business’, more of a funded leisure activity. If anyone doubts this then they should stop to consider the ‘other’ jobs that most artists have to work to keep a roof over their head and food in their stomachs.
If it’s not for the money, then it must be something to with fame? Maybe that’s why young artists seek an international career? That makes a certain amount of sense. And yet artists are not just that superficial are they? It’s not purely fame for the sake of fame they desire is it? There are easier and cheaper ways to obtain fame than studying art for three years and living on canned food for the foreseeable future, till you start to make some kind of name for yourself. Even then such ‘fame’ only takes the pressure off a bit, it doesn’t exactly line your pockets. So why do young artists desire international careers? If it’s not money and it’s not fame then perhaps it is because of idealism.
Idealism, could this be the answer to the question? Young artists are incredible idealists… you kind of need to be to make such a financially shit career move. Yet this is just the point, you don’t do art because of money, not until your old and cynical anyway. No, you do art because it’s the right thing to do, it’s what EVERYBODY should be doing: Freeing themselves from the shekels of the corporate driven money machine, raising two fingers to the establishment and expressing themselves: making ‘Art’. Isn’t that how it is? Idealism sounds about right. Well, idealism with money and fame thrown in for good measure.
Yet this is not knocking young artists. Idealism is a good thing: it means you have not thrown in the towel and for what its worth you truly believe that you, as small and insignificant as you are, CAN make a difference to this sorry tired world. The fact is young artists do seem to think like this. Many of them are up to their neck in philosophical theories about politics, ecology, activism etc. Everything one would imagine you should really read to be become a responsible human being, take charge and make a difference to this ever more turbulent world.
And the good news is, for all those budding idealistic art activists with dreams of international art careers, fame and a little bit of money thrown in for good measure, that it’s getting cheaper to make a difference to this world all the time! Where once it was a rare occurrence for an artist to cross his countries border and head off to foreign climbs, now thanks to Easyjet, Flyb, Jet2 and a whole barrage of budget flight providers it is possible, for cheaper than an evenings dinning in a good restaurant, to be idealistic everywhere and anywhere you please. That’s not the only good news! It seems more than ever, that there appears to be an abundance of people who are not only willing, but actually want to listen to some young idealist rant on about any number of ‘political’ issues. What good news for our young ideally minded artists. Yet it is hear I begin to find some problems. Not with the idealism or the drive to understand and affect politics, that is perfectly admirable and commendable. No, it is the other aspect of this whole thing that bothers me… let me explain.
You see the more people travel around, one week in Belfast the next in Budapest or Belgrade, the less time they have in any one place to actually have a political effect there. Technology may be getting faster but human nature is as old as the hills and if you want to alter society, which is the ultimate goal of most political art, then you have to realise that society is built on human nature and it will take a whole lot more than quirky art dressed in clever arguments to move an edifice that history has demonstrated to be so disobliging and frankly bloody minded.
What is obvious to me, although probably very hard for a reader to stomach, is that most artists and advocates of art activism don’t recognise in themselves, as they sit through an evening of talks on political art, their inner teenager lapping up discussion as though it was a ‘Rage Against the Machine’ record and they were sixteen again. To put it less metaphorically: People do not recognise that these cultural events which act as platforms for social change, actually hamper change by providing an outlet for peoples aggression to be spent on intellectual wrangling. People, in their fervour for social change, have replaced direct social action with unending and varied discussion about the nature of social change.
From this unending discussion a whole industry has sprang up: a globally networked roving revolutionary talking shop comprised or galleries, universities, publishers, independent curators, cultural theorists and last but not least: ideally minded young artists bouncing around through it all like so many ping-pong balls in a washing machine. All these things working in unison like one well oiled machine produce books, exhibitions, conceptual models of the world and last but by no means least personalities in the form of ‘artists’ for us to spend and invest our minds, energy and money. None of this really changes anything, and in fact it is all just one other cultural leisure industry producing a pseudo-revolutionary hobby for the all too bored middle classes; those great exponents of armchair socialism.
What is one to do in the middle of all this? Well I don’t know about you, but I’m done with it all: ITS MISERY. I’m going to stay home with my Kid and go for walks in the Park. I’m never writing another application for an exhibition as long as I live. I’m not getting on another plane to New York, London, Berlin or any other god(s) forsaken misery hole of a city UNLESS it’s for non-art Purposes. I’m done with hurtling around with the surplice crusaders. I’m going to stay home and enjoy myself. STAY HOME: MAKE ART. And what's more I’m inviting you to join me.
To join the Nobody go anywhere: Stay home make Art campaign email: nobodygoanywhere@spartaction.com
STAY HOME MAKE ART
A Manifesto
Since time immemorial the fame of ones name in other places has been a mark of ones success in ones chosen profession. This is particularly true of the arts, whose primary function is to entertain be it purely through beauty or something slightly more ‘deep’ such as intellectual musing or political comment. It is a truism that almost all young artists today who possess any ambition seek an international career in which their name, probably more than their art, will become internationally recognised.
What are the reasons for this? At one point in history it would have made a certain amount of business sense to be internationally known. You could be the IBM of the art world, selling every single painting, sculpture, video, drawing, installation, performance, other (delete as appropriate) you make for enough money to keep a small family from Ballymurphy in food and clothes for a year.
But these days most artists could hardly be said to conduct ‘business’ since for the most part the money they earn from exhibitions seems to be little more than the price of their ‘jollies’ while away with their artwork. This could hardly be called ‘business’, more of a funded leisure activity. If anyone doubts this then they should stop to consider the ‘other’ jobs that most artists have to work to keep a roof over their head and food in their stomachs.
If it’s not for the money, then it must be something to with fame? Maybe that’s why young artists seek an international career? That makes a certain amount of sense. And yet artists are not just that superficial are they? It’s not purely fame for the sake of fame they desire is it? There are easier and cheaper ways to obtain fame than studying art for three years and living on canned food for the foreseeable future, till you start to make some kind of name for yourself. Even then such ‘fame’ only takes the pressure off a bit, it doesn’t exactly line your pockets. So why do young artists desire international careers? If it’s not money and it’s not fame then perhaps it is because of idealism.
Idealism, could this be the answer to the question? Young artists are incredible idealists… you kind of need to be to make such a financially shit career move. Yet this is just the point, you don’t do art because of money, not until your old and cynical anyway. No, you do art because it’s the right thing to do, it’s what EVERYBODY should be doing: Freeing themselves from the shekels of the corporate driven money machine, raising two fingers to the establishment and expressing themselves: making ‘Art’. Isn’t that how it is? Idealism sounds about right. Well, idealism with money and fame thrown in for good measure.
Yet this is not knocking young artists. Idealism is a good thing: it means you have not thrown in the towel and for what its worth you truly believe that you, as small and insignificant as you are, CAN make a difference to this sorry tired world. The fact is young artists do seem to think like this. Many of them are up to their neck in philosophical theories about politics, ecology, activism etc. Everything one would imagine you should really read to be become a responsible human being, take charge and make a difference to this ever more turbulent world.
And the good news is, for all those budding idealistic art activists with dreams of international art careers, fame and a little bit of money thrown in for good measure, that it’s getting cheaper to make a difference to this world all the time! Where once it was a rare occurrence for an artist to cross his countries border and head off to foreign climbs, now thanks to Easyjet, Flyb, Jet2 and a whole barrage of budget flight providers it is possible, for cheaper than an evenings dinning in a good restaurant, to be idealistic everywhere and anywhere you please. That’s not the only good news! It seems more than ever, that there appears to be an abundance of people who are not only willing, but actually want to listen to some young idealist rant on about any number of ‘political’ issues. What good news for our young ideally minded artists. Yet it is hear I begin to find some problems. Not with the idealism or the drive to understand and affect politics, that is perfectly admirable and commendable. No, it is the other aspect of this whole thing that bothers me… let me explain.
You see the more people travel around, one week in Belfast the next in Budapest or Belgrade, the less time they have in any one place to actually have a political effect there. Technology may be getting faster but human nature is as old as the hills and if you want to alter society, which is the ultimate goal of most political art, then you have to realise that society is built on human nature and it will take a whole lot more than quirky art dressed in clever arguments to move an edifice that history has demonstrated to be so disobliging and frankly bloody minded.
What is obvious to me, although probably very hard for a reader to stomach, is that most artists and advocates of art activism don’t recognise in themselves, as they sit through an evening of talks on political art, their inner teenager lapping up discussion as though it was a ‘Rage Against the Machine’ record and they were sixteen again. To put it less metaphorically: People do not recognise that these cultural events which act as platforms for social change, actually hamper change by providing an outlet for peoples aggression to be spent on intellectual wrangling. People, in their fervour for social change, have replaced direct social action with unending and varied discussion about the nature of social change.
From this unending discussion a whole industry has sprang up: a globally networked roving revolutionary talking shop comprised or galleries, universities, publishers, independent curators, cultural theorists and last but not least: ideally minded young artists bouncing around through it all like so many ping-pong balls in a washing machine. All these things working in unison like one well oiled machine produce books, exhibitions, conceptual models of the world and last but by no means least personalities in the form of ‘artists’ for us to spend and invest our minds, energy and money. None of this really changes anything, and in fact it is all just one other cultural leisure industry producing a pseudo-revolutionary hobby for the all too bored middle classes; those great exponents of armchair socialism.
What is one to do in the middle of all this? Well I don’t know about you, but I’m done with it all: ITS MISERY. I’m going to stay home with my Kid and go for walks in the Park. I’m never writing another application for an exhibition as long as I live. I’m not getting on another plane to New York, London, Berlin or any other god(s) forsaken misery hole of a city UNLESS it’s for non-art Purposes. I’m done with hurtling around with the surplice crusaders. I’m going to stay home and enjoy myself. STAY HOME: MAKE ART. And what's more I’m inviting you to join me.
To join the Nobody go anywhere: Stay home make Art campaign email: nobodygoanywhere@spartaction.com
posted by jim leftwich at 5:54 PM
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