Protest Shows and Art
The Stuckists have made use of their art shows in order also to promote a message. The name of the group itself is an ironic pre-emptive riposte to their anticipated enemies—as represented in the first instance by former colleague-turned-YBA, Tracey Emin, who had called the group's co-founder, Billy Childish, "stuck". The group's first show in 1999 was titled, Stuck! Stuck! Stuck!. In 2000, they made an overt challenge with a show titled, The Resignation of Sir Nicholas Serota. A painting in the show, Sir Nicholas Serota Makes an Acquisitions Decision by Charles Thomson, has since been reproduced in the media many times and become an iconic image for the Stuckists.
In 2005, another show was called: "Painting Is the Medium of Yesterday"—Paul Myners CBE, Chairman of Tate Gallery, Chairman of Marks and Spencer, Chairman of Aspen Insurance, Chairman of Guardian Media, Director of Bank of England, Director of Bank of New York. A Show of Paintings by the Stuckists, as Refused by the Tate Gallery. Guaranteed 100% Free of Elephant Dung.
The Stuckists Punk Victorian exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery during the 2004 Liverpool Biennial including a free-standing screen with paintings attacking the Turner Prize and the Tate gallery.
Michael Dickinson has exhibited political and satirical collages, addressing the Iraq War and world leaders, particularly US President George W. Bush. In 2006 he was told he faced prosecution in Turkey, where he lives, for his collage Best in Show, showing the Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan as a dog. He was subsequently prosecuted for a similar collage, Good Boy, and acquitted in a case that had implications for Turkey's application for membership of the European Union.
Read more about this topic: Stuckist Demonstrations
Famous quotes containing the words protest, shows and/or art:
“It is a protest against the way the world has worked.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“... the outcome of the Clarence Thomas hearings and his subsequent appointment to the Supreme Court shows how misguided, narrow notions of racial solidarity that suppress dissent and critique can lead black folks to support individuals who will not protect their rights.”
—bell hooks (b. c. 1955)
“The poet needs a ground in popular tradition on which he may work, and which, again, may restrain his art within the due temperance. It holds him to the people, supplies a foundation for his edifice; and, in furnishing so much work done to his hand, leaves him at leisure, and in full strength for the audacities of his imagination.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)