THE
TATE
Our
gallery •
Serota
petition
•
Serota
competition
•
Mark Wallinger •
Jonathan Meese
Major topics: Trustee
scandal •
Turner demos
• Stuckists
rejected
JONATHAN
MEESE
25 February 2006
Jonathan
Meese's Rachel Whiteread Tate intervention intervened in....
It must be the Stuckists....
|
"I saw
the appeal on ur website4more info about the incident in tate
modern. I took this photo during the performance, think this
may be the object that was thrown. Hope this is helpful. From
Jo Peace." |
From
AOI (Association of Illustrators) message
board:
Topic:
Rachel Whiteread's white boxes at Tate Modern
Clare Tovey: It was tempting to re-arrange the white
cubes, and touch them, but that is not allowed needless to
say.
Damien Roach: I was at the Tate Modern on Saturday
night [25.2.06] seeing the Rachel Whiteread show and a performance
by Jonathan Meese, and someone in the crowd threw something
down onto the work from above, it made a pretty loud crash,
I was wondering if it was you??? Or if not, do you or anyone
else know anything about it? I'd be really interested to find
out who did it. I was wondering what the object was and what's
become of it now, whether the work was damaged and what it
was all about. Has anyone heard anything about this?
|
Lyn:
I think its a bit odd to suggest that Clare would throw
something at an art installation...are you for real?
Nicole
Morris: I heard about the incident and I'm pretty sure
it was the stuckists, you know the anti-conceptual activist
group. Not sure if it was directed specifically at Rachel
Whiteread's work though, it could have been more about the
Tate as an institute.
. . . . . . . . . .
Nicole might be pretty sure it was the Stuckists, but the
Stuckists aren't pretty sure it was the Stuckists. Anyone
who is absolutely sure who it was might like to let us know
and tell Damien Roach who is very keen to find out. Email:
roachdamien@yahoo.co.uk
Please note: we have been contacted by the London artist
Damien
Roach, who wishes to make it clear that he is not the
Damien Roach named above. We have also been contacted by
the the Damien Roach named above to make it clear that he
is not the London artist Damien Roach.
. . . . . . . . . .
Following our request, Michelle Dovey emailed to say:
"The Jonathan Meese performance at the Tate Modern on Saturday
had members of the audience unbelievably furious. Whilst
the performance was rousing, such extreme hostility in the
viewers seemed a little implausible at times and the convenient
way in which it complemented the artwork leads my friends
and I to question its authenticity. Upon reading on the
Stuckist website of Tate Chief Curator, Judith Nesbitt's
fondness of interventions and encounters I wonder whether
the seemingly disruptive throwing of an object during the
performance may have been endorsed by the Tate in a push
for publicity through scandal, surely in accordance with
the gallery's decision to stage such an artwork in the first
place."
. . . . . . . . . .
Damien Roach (not the London artist) emailed (2.3.06) to
say:
" I have contacted those at Tate Modern, who, in their
efficacy, have advised that I will hear back from them over
the course of the following two weeks. This is one can of
worms that I intend to get to the bottom of..."
. . . . . . . . . .
Damien Roach (not the London artist) emailed
(20.3.06) to say:
I thought it might interest you to hear the official line
the Tate are (finally) taking re the events of 25/03. Although
they weren't aware of anything "unusual or out of the ordinary"
having occurred during Meese's performance, "works get interfered
with all the time and people often are unsure of the boundaries
or social etiquette of Art and react accordingly, sometimes
going beyond the pale".
. . . . . . . . . .
Stuckism handy guide to the art world....
An act by an individual which interferes with an existing
artwork is termed an "intervention" and the individual
termed an "artist" if they are endorsed by a Tate
curator or are dead. The same, or similar, act by an individual
interfering with the same artwork (or even interfering with
the interference to the artwork), if they are alive and
are not endorsed by a Tate curator, is termed "vandalism",
and the individual termed a "criminal".
See The
Battle of Trafalgar, 4 Jun 2001 and String
up the perpetrator .
Judith Nesbitt, Tate Chief Curator, (see Tate Triennial
below) likes intervention
and promotes art that "invites
a direct encounter", so this is likely to result
in unwanted eventualities...
|
|