I chanced recently on the website of Stuckism International. I'm glad to see this art movement's opposition to most 21st century media does not include a suspicion of digital technology - it's a well-designed and efficient site. Efficient, that is, at putting out their ill-conceived, rabble-rousing nonsense.
My interest in Stuckism has never been very profound, so I had no idea it could boast such a large collection of manifestos. No other art movement today makes such use of this classic 20th century literary form. For that matter, is there any other art movement today? Any other -ism? Art in this century is so plural and various that artists generally seem able to get their ideas across without the aid of ideologies.
To which the Stuckists reply: that's because a single ideology, the deadening, anti-art ideology of Turner prize art, with its ready-mades, its videos and its acceptance of absolutely anything at all, (except figurative painting), holds art in an iron grip, and kills it.
But it is the Stuckists who are enemies of art. It is they who make it harder for sensitivity and creativity to thrive. I hate their cheap slogans. You should come to art with an open mind. This is not easy; the hysterical rants of the Stuckists make it harder. The ready-made can be a redundant cliche - or a poetic revelation. Painting can be the most majestic of art forms - or an ugly mess. To say "painting good, ready-made bad" is not a view of art - it's a prejudice. There are huge variations in the uses artists have made in the last 90 years or so, of found objects and to dismiss all these as detrimental to art is just not an argument. It's a surrender, a nervous breakdown.
The Stuckists are enemies of all they claim to love. Too much anger makes a stone of the heart.
