Oi BITCH! Burberry and Manslaughter!

The young respectable man hurriedly walks a long the fine pavement wearing at best, a long genuine grey/green Burberry coat, but it could be perceived as more of an autumn colour, a Cashmere Burberry check scarf (You can tell because the fibres look softer), smart black skinny jeans and a pair of pointy shiny black shoes.


In his hand he is carrying a green leather folder. He is a fast walker. Up ahead are two fat women. Both have their hair tied back in ponytails. Both are smoking. One has a big sovereign ring on her finger. Both are with pushchair and child.

Now, because the pavement is not so wide it is important to understand that two pushchairs placed side by side can occupy the pavement making it extremely difficult for one to squeeze past. But this is what mothers, chav mothers like to do. As if it is some sort of egg and spoon race, just this time with more lively screaming wanker eggs in big SUV carriages, they tend to keep head-to-head whilst chatting absolute fraff about their lives with eachother - I'm sure the local council estate gossip). Of course the young respectable gentle man in a rush sees the two (vigilant looking) women approaching and this is what happens:


1. DEATH.

The young man hurried that day determined to get quickly to his house. It had been a tremendously productive start to the day awakening all kinds of potential, theoretic stimulation which he now wished to channel as soon as possible into his work.
Up ahead in the distant he saw two large ladies walking with pushchairs. Suddenly they stopped. Stopped whilst talking. One needed to put her baby's bottle back into the bottom deck of her bus carriage, whilst the other stood their smoking, chewing gum, chatting and eyeing up the oncoming gentlemen with some sort of underlying hatred for anybody that looked like a toff. "Oh dear" thought the young respectable man in negation, "I'd better walk around them, but the only way is to step off the pavement into the road." And without thinking twice, remaining pretty focused on getting to the office, he stepped out into the road...

BANG.

2. ACCIDENT

The young man hurried that day determined to get quickly to his home, in particular his study. It had been a tremendously productive start to the day awakening all kinds of senses, potential, theoretic stimulation, poetic imagery, which he now wished to channel as soon as possible into his work.


Up ahead in the distant he saw super large ladies walking with pushchairs. Suddenly they stopped. Stopped whilst talking. One needed to put her baby's bottle back into the bottom deck of her bus carriage, whilst the other stood their smoking, chewing gum, chatting and eyeing up the oncoming gentlemen with some sort of underlying hatred for anybody that looked like a toff.
The young man thinks to himself, "Oh crumbs, I have to try to squeeze past somehow. Should I ask them to move? Oh no, that would be ridiculous, they look like the type to just grunt and punch me in the face. What me? Asking two "mothers" to move for a gentleman?
They would probably turn round and tell me to... you know? "F" off!?
That word those scrubby people use. Those ehm..,"
His thoughts mumble for a second, "What do you call it... ehm... Chavs! yes..., They would probably be rude to me, I couldn't possibly stand there waiting politely for them to move now could I?"

And whilst pausing to think about this, the man had actually made his decision then and there. He tried not to stare into the faces of the fat chavvy, "cigarette rapist" mums and their scrubby Adidas babies and just stood there for what was just a quick instant, expecting them to move, possibly one to walk ahead of the other. But no, not so. The fat mum just stood there observing with hatred. The respectable gentleman did not want to look like a fool and had an image to retain and of course places to go, work to get on with. He could not wait, to be even more humiliated by these grotesque failures of society.

He acted quickly and might I say not in the most diligent manner, somehow remaining on the pavement, but bombarding past the pushchairs. The fat chav mum was accidentally pushed back whilst the young respectable man maintained an extremely slim foothold on the tiny paving stone in which to pass by safely. Having gone only a few steps further, he thought about his action, and said to himself what if it had gone a little more like this?...

3. LESSON

The young man sped down the road that day determined to reach his house to put down onto paper the lesson and the sites he had seen earlier that day. It had been a tremendously productive start awakening all kinds of potential thoughts, the imagination that had also stimulated his brain to think more theoretically, training his eyes more visually, and now he wished to return imminently to channel all this synaesthetic inspiration into something more useful.


Up ahead in the distant he saw two large ladies wearing tracksuit bottoms, white trainers, gold chains and front buck teeth, walking with their pushchairs blocking the entire pavement. Suddenly they stopped. Stopped whilst talking. One mother needed to put her baby's bottle back into the bottom shelf of her Wagon cart, whilst the other stood their smoking all over her child's buggy, chewing gum with an opened yellow stained mouth, chatting in some filthy annoyingly loud dialect and eyeing up the oncoming gentlemen with some sort of utter hatred. Almost as if to say "if I were a bloke I would be robbing you mister" or at least taking the serious piss.

The serious piss? well the young man was having none of that this morning. He stopped before them and said "Hey listen, do you realise that what you are doing is a crime!"
"What you talking about?" they said,
"Yes that's right", the man told them "a crime, you're potentially guilty of a crime called manslaughter."
"Manslaughter? hang on, what the fuck are you talking here mate, I aint no killer", one of the mothers shouted through her chewing gum.
The young man backed off a bit from the smell and smoke, "Yes, because by obstructing the pavement, in this instant you could have caused me to step out into the road, you have applied pressure upon me to step around you with no room on the pavement, you and your pushchairs, where the only way to get past is to step out into the road. Now if I get hit, if I die, you would be guilty of manslaughter!"

And in saying this, of course the respectable gentleman didn't really know if that would be the case or not, but it made him think for the rest of the journey home, how well do we all know the law? how do we know when we are breaking the law? even such a thing as occupying the pavement which causes someone to fall into the road by accident, can you be liable? are you guilty of manslaughter for not knowingly forcing that person off the pavement who then got hit and died.


Of course it scared the "Sh.." out of the mothers who quickly moved aside to let the young respectable man pass with ease. They came away from hearing his words feeling like they had been freed from the clutches of prison and definitely a lesson learnt for next time. Perhaps they only go head to head now in the park or something...

But now I open this thought to you? How well do you know the law? How well do you know those by-laws and the legislations created. How do you know you are innocent all the time or actually doing a crime? is it that obvious. Whenever we think we're breaking a law it always normally comes down to one of those age old ten commandment things like "don't steal, don't kill, don't tell lies" bla bla bla of course, "laws of humanity and society". But within all that there seems to be a lot more that we the people just take for granted. We let the police and the lawyers do that and so when faced with the problem of accidentally a man is killed in the road, we don't even know why we then get thrown into jail.

It is about seeing the mistake before making the mistake just as an artist will see the bird before capturing it in words or visual representation.

Unless you are a lawyer it is a language in itself. But then is art as well? no it isn't necessarily! There's no use that fat chav saying, "oh but I never knew that obstructing the public walkway could lead to manslaughter!" "I never knew I was being a negligent idiot". Perhaps we are all negligent idiots only observing the surface and not digging deeper beneath the surface. Perhaps laws are only created for the police to enforce and for the lawyers who know how to read them. Perhaps that is why Law is always a good career to go into because "we", the people, will always have to employ them to understand it for us!


So as artists, again I ask who is art for? the people who know it or the people who don't? Is your art for the White Cube or is it for the Tate Modern? Public or Private? Know your art, like you should know the Law!

Fini

Grappling The Meaning of Success for Installation Artists

Feeling ill, after having finished another installation at the Warwick Arts Centre and with a little bit more time on my hands, I'm blogging again...


So what's better these days? fame, fortune or success? What is fame, what is fortune and what is success? for profit or not for profit? To become rich from your art? To sell? or to have received some good opportunities? And what does this all depend on, your ability to build your social capital. To create a buzz about yourself in the art world. To build a prolific portfolio and biography. To have exhibited or be collected by the best names in the world. To act like a lunatic artist just to boost more sales.



Joaquoin Phoenix attempted this stunt in Hollywood becoming the mad rapper prior to his next movie and failed, but then again you see this bohemian type of stunt in artists all the time, and soon it becomes just another boring façade - "Oh how dreamy art thou!". I want to fuck you, oooh!


To schmooze with the right people? To have your ideas accepted by somebody important? (They say, all it takes is one person to like your work). Film-makers who struggle each year with the costs of sending their films to all the major festivals with the hope of getting one of their films accepted often lose hope. This is the price to pay for success. It is the same with artists and competitions. Once you are accepted into a major film festival, it is easier to get into more. But are all the artist's competitions geared upon success? How is installation received in such competitions that are aimed more at commercial objects?

Another question to ask is whether it is better to be a struggling artist (as most installation artists are) or a successful artist?


Do the two overlap? What consequences will it have on our future art history?


Will the next generation of art historians only be interested in what was successful at the time, or are there people who are interested more in who the unknown, unsupported, un-established artists were, the ones who truly lived the Van Gogh lifestyle, who found life to be more of a challenge, who at times risked their careers by doing the dogs body jobs, who pushed the boundaries on their own steam, and did not sell out, or become driven by the market?

There are buyers, collectors, sponsors, grants museums for installation art, but tapping into this world is a difficult niche. "10,000 artschool graduates each year" I heard them say last night. Does an installation artist find avenues of commercialising his or her work, to build up fame and noteriety, success before being able to make installations.


The big coin question I thought about at my degree show was do I wish to proceed with making more commercial works to sell to investors, collectors, become a puppet to the system at my show, or will I make an opportunity of the space granted to do something ambitious, to show what can be achieved given the right budget, time-scale, planning and opportunity. Something daring, exciting and courageous. To push boundaries. Not to succumb to the commercial market. I did not train to be a businessman but an artist I kept telling myself. How could I squander an opportunity to pass on an art form that is so difficult to make a reality?

In saying that, does the artist (particularly in installation) desire a difficult life or an easier one despite what unknown events, luck, or fate comes to him/her. Everything weighs up. Of course an easier one would see the artist granted more opportunities, let alone success. The artist would still have to sing for their supper, but how loud? And under a strained voice, can the artist achieve a higher octave than the another who is simply singing comfortably.

To pull the advanced trick out of the bag seems to impress all the well connected judges and curators these days. Art and science, art and chemistry, art and physics, art and kinetics. Progression. How much money is in my back pocket. It seems to drive people crazy.

Soon we will all be in simulators each time we visit the gallery. We will be taken on a roller-coaster ride of skill, ingenuity, colours, light, sound, and emotions! The perfect cake-walk installation. How can we push art forward? how can we make an insane break through? If technology progresses, then surely art that combines technology is a progression! Am I a genius for pointing that out? No.

Building something clever and calling it with a completely mind baffling name seems to do the trick. Because art is meaningless these days, lets make it meaningful by confusing the hell out of the audience. Not only are they fascinated by the technology, they are also baffled by how it relates to something philosophical or mythological.

Of course to be successful is to constantly have innovative ideas and inventions up your sleeve, not simply a one trick pony, and also to make them commodities - commercialise them, things that people could buy for a grand (or more) at least per piece! Are they really pushing the senses, pushing society, pushing philosophy, pushing the limits, or are they pushing the collectors into buying art for arts sake?

And how does one go about pushing the collectors to buy their particular art for art's sake. Does it rely on their art advisors? or perhaps the galleries and the hard sales business men we call dealers? what about the interest from leading curators who will juxtapose your work with other people. What does one do essentially to sell?


The more buzz around the artist, the better the works will sell surely? Does it work to have a PR agent, a consultant, to run a press campaign for 6 months, to work a day job to afford their fees? At what point do the right galleries fall into place, and should we question whether working with a gallery is the right option for us? How do we strenthen our social capital and create the right opportunities even if the links are already established?

Back to the product, is it about selling something fresh or about making something fresh. Does an artist make a work of art with the intention of changing the minds of collectors or changing the minds of the people. Normally quite a big question is who is art made for?

Many artists make it for themselves with the intention of selling it to someone who will cherish it and protect it. But what about installation? Often it is temporary. It may consist of elements that can be bought or sold and collected, but certain site-specific works or temporary installations that are built specially, can no longer remain.


Last night I was at futuremap 10 housed at the Zabludowicz collection featuring the latest emerging artists from MA courses from University of the Arts London colleges. Amongst the art collectors, I spotted Richard Greer (whose wife was on the panel of judges for this competition). This man supported an installation artist called Mike Ballard for his installation entitled "The All of Everything" where the artist had painted the entire space.

So determined to collect a piece of this work, Mr Greer hired a truck and some people to actually rip out the the painted room before the building was to be demolished, and drove the remnants back to his country depot.

It makes me think about the serious interests of the collectors to immortalise all artworks.

I often think about how at an early age I used to play around with spray paint on the legal walls of fame in Crouch End, on the footpath of Parkland Walk. Each week a new artist would have painted a brand new mural. And each week theirs would get replaced by another great piece of art from someone else. A continual contribution. A sketchpad of sheer creativity. The root of this art form being temporary, a non permanent existence of a beautiful artwork, has now shifted into canvas for urban art galleries around brick lane and Redchurch street. Or moved into the commercial world, the T-Shirts, the Nike and Adidas trainers.

Artists like Insa and Astek who realised: at what point must a hobby become something I can make money from?

In this case, product design and graphics is the transition between graffiti and making money.

If I apply this to installation art, is it simply too much of an expensive hobby for an emerging artist? As a Graffiti artist would spend his hard earned pocket money on cans that would only paint a temporary piece, an installation artist also spends their hard earned money (from doing those dogs body jobs) renting an empty warehouse, organising all the expenses in order to be seen? Must the installations tick boxes in order to receive grants from the council? just as graffiti artists must produce something hip and street that ticks all the "cool" boxes for the kids to buy the shoe product?


Being an installation artist means needing to have a business plan as well. Chiharu Shiota has smaller sculptures and drawings aside from her large scaled installations that impress people into buying.


Is this something that all installation artists must now consider in order to break even? must we cramp our ideas into boxes?


I love flipping through Thomas Hirschhorn's catalogue for his show at the Whitechapel Gallery over a decade ago. The faxes he sent to the curator "This is an artist's bridge, not a designer's bridge". Ultimately it highlighted the available sources, the collectors, sponsors and vested interests, the funds, the technicalities; a real insight into the struggles, trials and tribulations of an artist working in un-elitist materials like cardboard and tape, whose work is classified as temporary and site specific. A slice of what it could be like.

I think to myself, what about Gustav Metzger? How did he survive all this time, perhaps that will be something for me to look into; his life more so than his work, as a point of interest.

Well I will conclude here with no real conclusion as their never is in life. I've simply stated how it is, how it could be, how it wants to be without wanting it to be. Why it is, and won't be. Some things are purely in your control and the other things are entirely up to the Devil, all has an important part to play in shaping an artist's work success, opportunity, skill, talent.

Fini

The Boy and The Bitch

PROLOGUE:

There once was a boy who had not been tarnished, who had not found his way, who was lost who was indecisive.

There once was a man who was so sure of himself, so confident so full of life, and so egotistical, a very successful fuck face.

There once was a woman who was a man, so assertive, so strong, so rude and courageous.

There once was a girl so proud to stand tall, she would shrug her shoulders to the dirt within her sight, only dirt could remain beneath her shoe.

There once was a man who was so well known who would ignore the person in the corner who wished to know him. There once was a man who felt like a woman that he dressed like a man but still felt like a woman.



There once was a dog that yapped and barked and slept and shat and walked in the park happily living its life.

There once was a lady who had achieved great things, but was too great to help others achieve.
There once was a man who helped everyone he met until there was noone left to help at all.



There once was a boy who was the talk of the town, but did not like what the town was talking about him. There once was a frog that burped a green gas, who made all the other frogs yellow with envy. There once was a big girl who had no friend in the world except her pen and her diary. There once was a tall gentlemen who hated people drinking wine. There once was a lady with a bright green handbag who felt it made her appear more attractive. There once was a pearl that remained lost at sea. There once was a giant black diamond that was found and unearthed, but kept locked out of site, by the forces of evil so no one would know it existed. There was once some games that rich people played, like polo or croquet.

There once was a game that peasants played like stick in the mud, alone on the floor, which in fact unlike the expression "stick in the mud", gave children far more imagination to create with! However, there once was a time it was harder to tell which games brought more fun and enjoyment. There once was a boy who felt a little bit better for clearing out his closet every once in a while. There once was an artist who incinerated all his possessions so he could be reborn.


CHAPTER ~

A little boy so unsure of himself wished he had not been out that night. He wished he had not seen what he had seen. It made him feel no better with the world. Perhaps the night was unhappy to have seen him too. Inside the room, a disc shot him down, bang. His glass dropped to the floor. He could see the shocks and smiles on the people's faces. Lots of peoples faces shone in the room. The teeth chattering, some gums looking false. Too perfect.

The suits, the pearls, diamonds, smart ties, long overcoats. The grey haired men with frames too stylish for their faces. The young men with frames at least twice their own age. The spinning women on heels with wine clutched to their lips. Too overbearing. What was the little boy doing in this domain. Was it an office? was it a hall? Was it a party? people dressed for an occasion. He crept through the crowds, noticed, unnoticed, unsure of which he preferred. "To see or not to see" he kept thinking. Either way he felt alone, good, bad, he couldn't quite weigh up the feeling. It wasn't that he didn't know anyone, he just felt like a nobody, simply a little boy. it was a party for people who already knew each other and he knew they did not know him. As he danced around each room beyond the hall, drifting in thoughts to himself, the thought did occur whether anybody else in the room cared? whether anybody else in the room was like him? A little boy, alone. Only men here! only family! What a tight nit community of bloodsucking nits in a cushioned scalp.

The boy overheard a man mattering to a nit who looked ready for the squeeze oily smiling out of fear, he couldn't quite make out what the man was saying, something like "We only pick you up and groom you to success if we like what you are doing. If you do what we tell you to do, simply we prescribe a type of lotion upon the scalp to draw you out, then the most exciting part is when we take our comb and run it through the scalp of this monstrous animal," the boy looks at the man this time who pauses to readjust his frames for extra clarity whilst addressing this nit"we look at you there wriggling as we clean the comb onto a nice white towel, and then we pop you. It works best when we use the corner of the metal comb! haha!" The nit smiling continues to laugh endlessly with a pointy shoe behind the other leg touching the floor nervously with its tip. The boy looked at the man again, "pop, pop, popping!" he heard, "popping, popping, splurge, blood popping you little system boy". The man who of course hadn't said that at all seemed oblivious to the little boy now staring intently at him. Perhaps the boy was delusional, hearing voices, strange weird thoughts.

The boy was suddenly pulsating very fast. He had seen a lady who he knew, but she had always ever addressed him with the back of her fur collar as she turned to ignore him. Not just his heart drumming, but his body felt extremely hot and sweaty.

She wasn't his nemesis, only it felt that he was a nobody. A nothing to her. Of course nobody knew much about the little boy but nobody seemed to care much anyway.

The boy felt his chest kicking. He put his left finger in his ear but the sound of heavy hooves and people trampled right through his transparent finger. der dum der dum der dum... The face of the woman beating closer in his eyes.

The hooves and thuds grew faint and silent. The boy let out a tear from his eye. The face of the woman was blurry on the left side, but visible enough to her turn into a fur collar with his right eye. Above this dance of the bully with the innocent, a bell was lowered down on a piece of string from above the boy and it started to ring upon his naked ear. His hands were tied to his glass again.

Tinnitus

(How would the woman ever learn to care, did she know how upset she made the unknown feel?)

He looked down at the glass tied to his hands. The reflection of light caught the lip of the glass like cars giving chase down a freeway, as if caught on camera by a helicopter flying above a Nascar stadium.


And as the wine swayed left very slowly, the glass smashed upon the concrete in to many fragments very slowly.

Pitch black.

Something was fidgeting. A slight ruffle followed by a soft moan. Naked, nimble fingers grabbed the mud clenching it oozing it. A heavy pant in the dark coming from the voice of a woman. A feeling of soft fur, and there is a trace of perfume lingering.

"I'm safe" thought the boy alone in the darkness.


Just then, a spark of light danced above as a lonely match flickered into life. The boy staring intently trying to figure out where he was. What was above him what was below him?

In silence, he could see the hooves of shoes and feet stampeding the ceiling. It was as though the boy was laying beneath the ground. Beneath the nits and farts, beneath the horses. Around in pitch darkness as if cemented unable to move, the boy inspected the transparent floor above the match still burning down.

"Am I dead?" thought the boy as the light disappeared.


A second match flickered, this time the boy tried to move closer but he was too weak. He saw the hooves again and the sound of people ever so faint. Slowly, building up, voices, clamber, jazz, cabaret!

He remained focused on the match this time reaching out to it in any way he could. His arm became free, stretched out extended as if by sheer will power, the match burning brighter and brighter as the boy wriggled free from the depths of his darkness. So bright did the match burn, like magnesium strips, the boy felt blinded! A heavy heat, his weakness held him back.
The drumming drones, flickering flame, nattering nits, horse's hooves pound so loud, SMASH!




"nnnnnn mmmmmm.....ssssoooooooooorrrrrr......" the boys eyes were cloudy, hazey the light had died down but his head was feeling sore. flickering teeth stared down at him. His sweat gland oozing. Dirty, he felt very dirty. Had he fallen. All the hooves of the feet seemed to be silent. He looked up, this time more clearly and people were surrounding him. Laughing at him, frantically covering their mouths at him. What had happened? Where was he?


How horrified they were of him, how horrific he found them. Wiping his sweaty brow, he looked around. How he hated people, the snobbery the camaraderie, the people fucking eachother behind eachother's back with eachothers wives. The boy knew the stories. The facial reconstruction he wished he could do to them, the plastic surgery, the face lifts.

The boy knew the types too well, former neighbours who drove their children in big four by fours around the suburbs. The bags under the eyes, the necklaces, purses and handbags that sucked life into them in shades of beige or green. "Not of this ilk are you?" he told himself. The suits with even more fancy pin stripes that were tailor made to express superiority. The games amongst gamers.

What was it they had, what was it the boy wanted from them? No lust no envy. The umbrellas that were made from fine wood. The silver broaches and the stylish glasses. "Fuck it all!" he thought in his head, never daring to mention it aloud. The thought of someone overhearing and thinking what an obscene little boy. Spare the embarrassment.

He realised of course he could never impress upon people he had set out to be on the wrong foot with in the first place. The foot they had used to stamp him under. He was a shy boy. Not ver confident with people. A person in his own right. He wasn't a man, and the system wasn't made for little boys. It was made entirely for men and women. Smart men and women who wore suits and skirts, and wrote cheques instead of dashing cash.

And as if thinking for too long without realising the actual situation, the boy lifted himself from the depths of his horrors. He could not figure out why he had been there. Shaking himself off, he stood up. The crowds returned to normal chit chat chomps chellalying like chadwell chillies. He felt glad the wine glass had smashed. The most beautiful moment of the night's effort was a slight shimmer of hope across its silver thin lip.

How oppressed these people were, he thought, stuck in their game, stuck in their system, stuck in the smartness, the sudo-cleverness, the eager attention to schmooze, to play into each others palms. The boy was alienated, felt alienated, it felt good. It felt free...really free!
"Children are to be seen but not heard!" he thought, joking to himself. This was an ugly stage where the young fall upon their own swords. The boy had made an error he could not erase. They had made an error he could not erase. From then on it was over. The deal had been settled. He would die a successful happy loser.


, ,
,,,,

Is it right to be put, into the dirt before maturity,
has even lived its years out, into the grey fields
with song and dance, to share in pools of mud.
To play the dirty violin, to young folk,
to cough on that, sweet black soot.
We heard the voice of the boy cry out, but none did turn to care,
with hands inside the others coats, they looked each down the others,
throats to see what treasures the elder swallowed, or whether tonsils struck
sore by poverty, the boy bound to work his graft,
no overcoat and no fur tails.

Voodoo Wine Induced Dream

I am at an exhibition of my work, a giant floor spaced installation (chessboard) in a large room. There are lots of people in the gallery. Some are dancing others sitting, there is live music, a guitar player is playing songs. I look at my installation but it is blurry. Everything else is clear but my work is all blurred, and as I come closer I realise that there is a clear giant plastic packet over the work similar to that of a biscuit or cracker packet, just like Oreos would be found in. Why is my work covered? is it to be protected? There is a sense of anger but also unceertainty. People seem to like the work so I begin not to bother. I sense something from my background. My family are there?

As I return home, of course my house is not my house but it feels like my house. I go to my bedroom and a friend is in bed with a woman I fancy. I reach into my coat pocket of my jacket which is like reaching into the far corner of the room, to pull out a condom and some lubrication from amongst some collected business cards. When I look around, it feels like the other side of the room, I see my friend and his woman stare at me. They have a stare that reminds me of the way sheep stand away from you but turn to look at you. A "sheep stare" on both of their faces. I fancy both of the sheep now, my friend included. But I get the feeling they want privacy and my intrusion for sex is unwarranted.

I head down the deep stairs of the mansion house towards a kitchen. I realise that the maid has not locked the back-door. I open the back-door ajar and realise there is a hooded youth standing outside. He is as startled as I am. He shouts "how did you know I was here?!" and sort of signals to someone who I notice is around the other side of the wall/window further to the left of the Kitchen. The wall is slightly transparent and a feeling of anxiety tells me this criminal can actually get into the kitchen through this transparent wall. I begin to shout at the youth "FUCKOFF!" as a sort of defence mechanism hoping to scare the shit out of him and they will all disappear. Instead, I notice a gang of people entering the house from that transparent corner on the left hand side of the kitchen.


And not before long I realise an army of black church members, party of some ritual sect, Malcolm X, are surrounding me in some sort of hallucinogenic kaleidoscope of extremely well choreographed people. My movements are in synch with all their movements. They are dressed in black robed clothes similar to pastors of a Black Church. Amongst the voodoo group there is a black young man with an androgynous look. I want to have sex with her. But he is trapped within the ever changing choreograph of the moving black bodies. It reminds me of a Spencer Tunnick photograph but even more beautiful and trippy. I stare intently at all the bodies now. Blood starts dripping on them in some ritual dance. Voodoo. I'm getting extremely stimulated staring at the boy/girl hidden amongst the others, who seems to be the star jewel of the bunch.

And then I wake up feeling sweaty and with an amazing hard on on the verge of cumming. Sometimes you wish you could go back into your dreams for just that extra bit longer...

Making Shit. Making Hitler

Often people ask me how I make my shit. my literal shit. that is beautiful. Like Hitler's moustache. Have you ever looked at your own poo in the toilet and got a little Dali on it? Poo can reveal some of the most incredible natural forms compressed by your very own gut. Dali could see bodies in rocks I wonder what he could see in faeces? Why am I talking about this...

Well it's because often people associate shit and faeces with negative things, disease and that. Wash your hands after going to the toilet, rid yourself of the germs, germs are bad. But beyond this there is something quite intriguing. Chris Ofili stuck elephant shit onto his paintings?! Is shit actually something quite beautiful beyond its smell.

If we apply this to crap art... Well, the materials in crap art are basically rubbish! Appreciated at the same value as garbage. If that is the case then how is it that Tim Noble and Sue Webster make such good money? or do they..? To sell through Gagosian I'm sure they are, but anyhow... not my point of discussion. Rubbish and rubbish made good. good crap. good hitler.

Two dried out sticks of wood. Some paper clips.


Little bit of gaffer tape. Wood is dry so it will safely stick.


Newspaper and tape to built up the shit body, followed by a layer of Modroc plaster of Paris to make the figure pretty strong.


Paper clips at bottom keep it standing upright like forks. Beneath I work on head using scrunched up ball of newspaper and tape and go over with fresh modelling clay. I add a nice little neck so later when it dries it will be attachable to the body. The neck can have tape tied over it important to bare in mind.


After a long story short this is hitler. The jacket is made from newspaper with white gaffer tape over it. This in itself creates a nice material, sort of papery but strong, shiny and smooth. It can also be cut allowing particular shapes and patches to be created and stuck into place.


I then painted the shit crap sicko red, as I said I would in earlier posts.

I love Hitler, occasionally his head has been found broken on the floor. I find it funny like a hindsight, or retrospective of what was to await his fate and what his fate ended up being. Sometimes he looks better decapitated. to add to the shitness of the art. The materials are so bad they break but that is what I like about this art, it is temporary. It will fade. Don't kid yourself. It is unelitist. But he is so cute anyway. cute like a piece of crap shit that he was.

Elitism buys into lifelong materials. Unelitism buys into now.
bourgeois hooks and talons - in tarot the hangman, holding onto something caught upside down by the foot.

No longer do I take this art so seriously. Let it be what it is. Let the artist be what he wanted to be. Not caught, not trapped, trapped for too long. Just flow have fun, live life in the world. Go paint bananas with kangaroo pups and eat spinach on a boat in Amsterdam whilst sailing off to the Bermuda triangle to warp into another hyper space.

Making shit. Making Hitler.

Personal and Intimate Freedom

Two photographers I am really in love with at the moment for different reasons. First series is of some sensual female erotic nudes by Damon Loble. They seem to have such a great quality light and capture the beauty of the body artistically. The golden hazey shines that many people try to get unnaturally using post-production, seems to look natural here? The second series of photographs are by Steven Beckly. They are more emotionally intimate exploring homoeroticism beautifully.








Both series of works make me feel closely connected as if by affinity. Let the eyes meditate over beauty whilst the heart reaches out touches and embraces. Let the power of love be the dictatorship over the world. Let no anxieties or jealousy be the cause of such pain and evil brought into this world. If only we could understand once again what our ancestors knew back then; how to love each and every human being on this earth. We are all beautiful people who fight and argue, possess and keep possessed. Release the evil! learn to be free. . .