Criticism From Stuckist Movement
Since its formation in 1999, the Stuckist art group has campaigned against Serota, who is the subject of group's co-founder Charles Thomson's satirical painting Sir Nicholas Serota Makes an Acquisitions Decision (2000), one of the best known Stuckist works. He was dubbed the "least likely visitor" to The Stuckists Punk Victorian show at the Walker Art Gallery in 2004, which included a wall of work satirising him and the Tate, including Thomson's painting. In fact, he did visit and met the artists, describing the work as "lively".
In 2005, the Stuckists offered 160 paintings from the Walker show as a donation to the Tate. Serota wrote to the Stuckists, rejecting this on the grounds that the work was not of "sufficient quality in terms of accomplishment, innovation or originality of thought to warrant preservation in perpetuity in the national collection", and was accused of "snubbing one of Britain’s foremost collections". The rejection galvanised the Stuckists into a media campaign over the Tate's purchase of its trustee Chris Ofili's work, The Upper Room.
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