24 Hour Museum - official guide to UK museums, galleries, exhibitions and heritage
Gateway to Over 3,000 UK museums, galleries and heritage attractions
Skip to navigation
Exhibitions
Stuckist's Punk Victorian Gatecrashes Walker's Biennial
By Richard Moss, 24 Hour Museum, in Liverpool
17/09/2004
The Stuckists Punk Victorian by Paul Harvey. Courtesy the artist.
They’ve spent years fighting the establishment. Now, for the first time, the Stuckists have been invited to join it.
Part of The Walker Art Gallery’s Biennial festival programme, The Stuckists Punk Victorian, on show from September 18 to February 20 2005, is the group’s first exhibition at a national institution.
For Charles Thomson, founding member of the group and exhibiting artist, the show is the natural culmination of his work.
"It’s a vindication of the fact that we’ve achieved a presence in the art world," Charles told the 24 Hour Museum.
That presence has been slowly built up by the artistic movement, created in 1999 and named after an accusation levelled at co-founder Billy Childish by his then girlfriend Tracey Emin: "Your paintings are stuck! You are stuck! Stuck stuck stuck!"
Bored of Brit Art and calling for a move away from conceptualism, the Stuckists set themselves as a constant reminder to the establishment that it was, in their opinion, getting things wrong.
Sir Nicholas Serota Makes an Acquisitions Decision by Charles Thomson. Photo: David Prudames. Courtesy the artist.
Each year when Turner Prize season comes around, the group is there, picketing the steps of Tate Britain, lambasting Tate Director Sir Nicholas Serota and railing against an art world they feel has become a commercial enterprise.
"It’s about the art being the real thing," said Charles. "Verbal language tells people about things that they consider important, but we want to use visual language in the same way."
According to Thomson it was Marcel Duchamp who came along and changed everything: "He disrupted things and that’s fine, but now things have been shaken up so much that it’s been shaken up into little bits and the little bits have been shaken up into even smaller bits. We are saying let’s put it all back together."
The first thing that sticks out about the Punk Victorian is the way it’s hung. It’s redolent of those old days of the 'academy' where Victorian worthies scanned vast wall-fulls of paintings.
As Charles Thomson explained, this was something of a deliberate ploy and helps enhance the group’s message.
"They hung it like that because it was a good way to hang it," he said. "You can see most of it that way and it’s the most enjoyable way of experiencing the art."
Charles Thomson and model 'Emily' pose in front of Paul Harvey's 'Punk Victorian' Photo: Richard Moss. © 24 Hour Museum.
However, he was quick to point out that Stuckists are not artistic luddites: "A big mistake about Stuckism is that we are trying to get back to something. We are not saying there’s a golden age in the past. The golden age is every age; it’s the present, this is the golden age."
There’s a broad range of styles on show here, perhaps reflecting the Stuckist stamp, which is very much against formalism in painting. There is a sense that the techniques deployed have been developed by the artists themselves.
Exhibitors Sexton Ming and Philip Absolon could be tagged as outsiders, but there is much greater depth than you’d get in an outsider painting.
In Eamon Everall’s work there are touches of neo-cubism and whilst the work of Bill Lewis is full of Jewish, Pagan and Christian imagery, the man in many ways symbolises the Stuckist ethic.
He is self-taught and in common with many of the artists on show has been kept out of the art scene. In conversation he is self-effacing, but has a strong sense of his artistic worth.
"I do this because I can’t do anything else and I’ve spent 20 years doing it," he told me.
Job Club by Philip Absolon. Courtesy the artist.
"I wouldn’t be considered by some to be a professional artist and some of this stuff will be looked at by 'experts' and they’d say this person can’t paint properly," he added. "They haven’t been trained properly."
Within the group there are many different strands and there’s no overarching concept. It’s an eclectic collection of work at times subtle, at times bold and obvious as brass.
Yet one thing that must be stressed is that they’re not out to shock. There are some images in the exhibition that some might find difficult, but there is a real sense that these are painters trying to create beautiful objects.
But what’s interesting is that they called it Punk Victorian: an ironic title for a movement that seeks to eschew irony. Indeed, they claim to hate the irony of other movements such as post-modernism.
This, as Bill Lewis pointed out, is a grey area that can often put viewers off the Stuckist scent: "People are never sure if we are being ironic or not," he said, "we are not. We are coming from the heart."
The Gift by Eamon Everall. Courtesy the artist.
The title of the show and work of the same name created by former member of punk band Penetration, Paul Harvey bring that sentiment firmly to mind.
Despite the fact the Stuckists say they’re not trying to hark back to a golden age there are parallels with past artistic movements. The Walker itself, the title Punk Victorian, put one in mind of the Pre-Raphaelites.
Like the oft-maligned, but much-loved 19th century group the Stuckists count painters, poets, musicians and political activists among their number.
No doubt if punk had broke in 1877 instead of 1977 Edward Burne-Jones would have played bass in a Victorian punk band.
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
The Walker Art Gallery, William Brown Street, Liverpool, L3 8EL, Merseyside, England
T: 0151 478 4199
Open: Mon - Sun 1000-1700
Closed: 24 December, from 2pm
25, 26 December
1 January
Related Articles
Peter McDonald's Slasher Painting Wins John Moores Prize
Bold Shortlist Announced For John Moores Painting Prize
Art In The Age Of Steam At The Walker Art Gallery Liverpool
National Museums Liverpool's Epic Painting For A People's City Takes Shape
Liverpool Museums Predict Record Breaking Year For Liverpool 08
Joseph Wright Of Derby's Liverpool Years At The Walker
Jake & Dinos Chapman Join Jury For UK's Biggest Painting Prize - John Moores 2008
E-news registration
E-mail story to a friend
Tell us what you think
Renaissance Faces: Van Eyck To Titian At The National Gallery
Gimme Shelter - Punters Tackle Tate's Latest Turbine Hall Experiment
The Revolution Continues At The New Saatchi Gallery
More Than 75 Exhibitions - Brighton Photo Fringe 2008
Thomas Hirschhorn - The Incommensurable At Brighton's Fabrica
Allen Ruppersberg's First Solo Show At Camden Arts Centre
New Light On Andy Warhol''s Works At The Hayward Gallery
Remembering The Great War At Imperial War Museum London
Holman Hunt's Story Paintings Fill Manchester Art Gallery
Miró, Calder, Giacometti, Braque At The Royal Academy
Brighton Photo Biennial 2008 Questions War Photography
Hunterian Museum Exhibits Drawings Of Rare Disease
Tracey Chevalier Curates A Thousand Words At York Gallery
Both Sides Of The Iron Curtain - Cold War Modern At The V&A
Four Hopefuls Unveiled For The Turner Prize 2008 At Tate Britain
MADE UP At Liverpool Biennial Of Contemporary Arts 2008
National Maritime Museum Displays Francis Frith Postcard Images
Iconic Rothko Seagram Murals Reunited At Tate Modern
Search this site
Home Page
News Page
Exhibition Page
What's On
Trails Page
Website of the Week
Letters Page
Welsh Home
Graphical Version
Copyright © 24 Hour Museum
Information published here was believed to be correct at the time it was prepared. Welsh language pages developed with CYMAL: Museums Archives and Libraries Wales, funded by the Welsh Assembly Government.