A Stuckist Writes

Hi kiddo, oh lover of light fittings etc. I rather like light fittings too, but I don't find their display as art tells me anything more than my display of them on the living room ceiling, as it happens. But I certainly don't want to interfere with your pleasure. I just don't want it to be the exclusive one that dominates the art scene and media to the exclusion of other voices, like the one which might find that - for example - Van Gogh had more insight, vision, love (not a word, I assure you, restricted to hippies) and artistic talent in his missing earlobe than Don Flavin could ever have in an entire lifetime.

You seem to be on this kick of the constant 'new' and not very comfortable with the past. No doubt you consider this Flavin chap preferable to Shakespeare, Homer and Buddha all rolled into one. They certainly didn't have the great idea of exhibiting light fittings.

However, I don't want to be too hard on you. You are even better at us than ranting, although I suppose you make up for that superiority with a lack of our wit and self-awareness. Our sense of humour has also by-passed you. But then it by-passes most people. Our views make more sense if you have a little chuckle occasionally when you read them.

I don't think you have actually read them very well, which is understandable as there are quite a lot of them (on the Manifesto page). Let us take Remodernism point 7. Spirituality is defined as "a declaration of intent to face the truth. Truth is what it is regardless of what we want it to be... the attractive and the grotesque..." etc. I don't think that's unreasonable at all.

We don't think that the man or woman in the street should be the ultimate arbiter of art as you suggest. We are too intelligent and aberrant ourselves for that. Nor do we have a contempt for that person either.

A lot of your sentiments are not that far from our own, which is a nice irony. (I enjoy a nice irony just before bedtime.)

As for whether you like the work of Stuckist artists or not. Well, I do, so there.

It is long overdue for someone to do what we're doing and no one has, so we're doing it.

Congratulations on bothering to look at (albeit not entirely accurately) what we are doing, as not one national art critic has yet had the wherewithal to even acknowledge our existence.

Yours

Charles Thomson
Co-founder, Stuckism

(named after neither Stuck the racing driver, nor von Stuck the artist)