Stuckist demonstrations
Their demonstrations are particularly associated with the Turner Prize at Tate Britain (sometimes dressed as clowns to mock the museum), but have also been carried out at other venues, including Trafalgar Square and the Saatchi Gallery.
The demonstrations have adopted a variety of themes to make their point, which is simply that the prize is named after a famous painter, but painting is neglected by it in favour of other media.
Although they have always been outside the building during the actual prize ceremony, they have, on two occasions, been mentioned by the guest of honour on live TV, just before the announcement of the winner—by Sir Peter Blake in 2003 and by Culture Minister, David Lammy in 2005.
The Independent on Sunday said, "In certain respects the Turner Prize never changes: art fleetingly makes the front pages; the dreary Stuckists protest outside the Tate and the winner gets a cheque for 20 grand.
[14] Ekow Eshun wrote, "if scandal equated directly to success then this year's winners should probably be the Stuckists, the ragged band of artist malcontents who've turned their annual placard-waving anti-Turner protest outside the Tate into a kind of art event of their own that now generates press attention from around the world.
[18] In 2003, the Stuckists displayed two blow-up sex dolls to parody Jake and Dinos Chapman's bronze (painted) sculpture modelled on one.
[19] As guests, including Jay Jopling, Tracey Emin, Victoria Miro and Jake Chapman, arrived, they were greeted with the announcement, "Turner Prize preview—see the original here and the copy inside."
"[7] Inside Tate Britain, on live television, Serota introduced Sir Peter Blake, who before he announced the winner, started his speech: "Thank you very much Nick.
"[21] To bring their point home, the Stuckists handed out a leaflet which read, with the mock tone of officialdom: "We apologise for the lack of art in this year's Turner Prize.
[22]The Stuckists demonstrated outside the Turner Prize on 6 December 2005 against the Tate's purchase of its trustee, Chris Ofili's work, The Upper Room.
"[24] Andrew Marr, a guest at the evening Prize reception, commented, "When they picketed us, the Stuckists seemed to me affable and intelligent people", although he strongly disagreed with them over Ofili's work.
The winner, Simon Starling had converted a shed into a boat and back again; The Times quoted Thomson that "The Turner should be renamed the B&Q diy prize.
"[28] The Stuckists handed Sir Nicholas Serota a demonstration leaflet with a Turner Prize "health warning" on one side (claiming that "the exhibits may cause drowsiness or headaches") and Thomson's painting of him on the other.
[31] Thomson's quote that winner Tomma Abts' work resembled "doodles done by a lobotomised computer" appeared in The Times[32] and in media abroad.
They also claimed that Mark Wallinger had copied their idea of walking round a museum dressed in a costume, that he was indistinguishable from a Stuckist demonstrator,[34] and that his work was "utter bilge", which had "all the excitement of watching a pensioner do the shopping at Asda".
[35] There was a demonstration by the artists, wearing black top hats,[4] on 29 September, the day before the show opened, when they gave out a leaflet with a "Not wanted" poster for Serota and button badges with the text "The Turner Prize is crap",[5] although they had not yet seen the exhibition.
[36] Condemning the Tate's promotion of conceptual art and the lack of figurative painting in the show (citing Stella Vine as one painter who has been passed over),[5] Thomson said, "The work is not of sufficient quality in terms of accomplishment, innovation or originality of thought to warrant exhibition in a national museum.
"[41] In 2003, the Saatchi Gallery re-opened at County Hall with a Damien Hirst retrospective, which included the exhibition of his refurbished piece, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, a shark in a tank of formaldehyde.
The Independent newspaper validated these claims and reported Thomson's complaint that Saatchi had been "stealing their identity as he tires of the Britart scene".
[44] Thomson and eleven other people (including non-Stuckists, such as David Lee and Christopher Fiddes of the Movement for Classical Renewal) then reported Saatchi to the Office of Fair Trading.
[45] The grievance was: Mr Saatchi's dominant market and PR position allowed him to achieve blanket coverage for a version of events which completely ignored her [Vine's] background with the Stuckists.
[47] The Stuckists' concerns were not alleviated, when, at the end of 2004, Saatchi announced that he was putting his Britart holding into storage and devoting the next year to exhibitions featuring only painting.
The statue was unveiled by the then-Culture Secretary, Chris Smith, against whom Thomson was standing in the 2001 United Kingdom general election as a Stuckist candidate.
In spring 2003, artist Cornelia Parker was allowed by the authorities to wrap Auguste Rodin’s sculpture The Kiss (1886) in Tate Britain in a mile of string.
However, this was described as an individual action outside the main Stuckist group by Thomson, who nevertheless took the opportunity to remark: "I was puzzled that Parker had been allowed to do her string-wrapping—thereby using another artist's work to promote her ideas—as this was precisely the allegation that an enraged Serota had thrown at me in Trafalgar Square and dubbed a 'cheap shot'.
"[58] In order to "highlight the fact that the Iraq War does not have the support of the United Nations, thus violating a binding contract with the UN", The Clown Trial of President Bush took place at 7 p.m. on 21 March 2003 on the steps of the New Haven Federal Courthouse, staged by local Stuckist artists dressed in clown costume, led by Jesse Richards, Nicholas Watson and Tony Juliano.
A painting in the show, Sir Nicholas Serota Makes an Acquisitions Decision by Charles Thomson, has since been reproduced in the media many times and become an iconic image for the Stuckists.
Michael Dickinson has exhibited political and satirical collages, addressing the Iraq War and world leaders, particularly US President George W. Bush.
[63] He was subsequently prosecuted for a similar collage, Good Boy, and acquitted in a case that had implications for Turkey's application for membership of the European Union.
[64] There has only been one known anti-Stuckist demonstration, which was in 1999, when two Chinese performance artists jumped on Tracey Emin's installation My Bed, in the Turner Prize at Tate Britain.
