“It’s just rubbish. Spineless and weak, and makes Joni Mitchell look like Rembrandt.”
Matthew Collings, not being overly generous about Graham Coxon’s ‘Coffee And TV’.
Take me to the art, to the art, to the art…
The February edition of
In the feature, entitled ‘Sheer Art Attack’, Matthew looks at the work of Jerry Garcia, Paul McCartney, David Bowie, Graham Coxon, John Cougar Mellencamp, Captain Beefheart, Ronnie Wood, Micky Dolenz, Tony Bennett, Bob Dylan and Tico Torres. Here’s what he had to say about Paul McCartney and David Bowie:
——————————————————————————————————————————
PAUL McCARTNEY
“Bowie Spewing”
It does what it says – see wonky eye for proof.
“The energetic mark making is a good thing, but everything else about it is bad. The horrible colours, the drawing, the banal arrangement, the half-arsed surreal eye in the middle with a load of messy blobs coming off it… all empty attitude, like any one of these bullshit curly marks. I think they’re just posing. And as for Bowie Spewing… that’s just stupid. It looks like it’s from 1980, and gives the impression of someone trying hard to seem like an artist, which is as embarrassing as someone trying to be like a rocker.”
Musical equivalent: “Something really bad by Wings. I respect Paul, but I’m going to have to give this the thumbs down.”
——————————————————————————————————————————
DAVID BOWIE
“Portrait Of The Artist In Four Parts”
A set of gurning self-portraits.
“Who is this by? Either a portrait of David by his wife, or some self-portraits by David Bowie. As he’s the publisher of some of my books, I can’t say anything other than it’s extremely interesting work by a great man, ha ha ha! I would say they are paintings by someone who likes
Musical equivalent: “Pass”
——————————————————————————————————————————
“…at last a book about the British art world, which is sympathetic and informed but not at all afraid to be incredibly rude. How has the art world changed since Blimey! first hit the bookstands five years ago? Is London’s new Tate Modern good or a plastic tourist attraction with religious mumbo jumbo sprayed on, like magic fairy dust? Is being a Marxist in today’s art world little more than a market choice? Curators: anaemic zombies or twenty-first century Easy Riders, art’s answer to Sly and the Family Stone? Is it right that art must be sanctimonious to be good? Why are we like this now and how long will it last?
In Art Crazy Nation Matthew Collings doesn’t set out to provide black-and-white answers to these questions. Instead he describes what art in Britain has become and how the art world is thinking. He offers a slice of the contemporary art zeitgeist.”
For your chance to win one of ten copies of ‘Art Crazy Nation’, just tell us which of Matthew’s three books David wrote the following about:
“So which artist used to paint naked at his easel with pins stuck through his penis? Is it possible to walk out from a warehouse art-show and plunge to your death? Matthew’s wired and rushy art history, alternately irritating and insightful, gives late 20th century Britart what it needs – a confusing, loony relevance.”
Clues can be found by clicking-through from the shortcuts on this page, remember the images here also have click-throughs to other relevant sites, including a click-through to a BowieArt page where you can purchase a set of postcards of the above Bowie self-portraits.
Once you’ve worked out what book David is talking about, send your answer to TotalBlamBlam@DavidBowie.com with a subject line of “Art Crazy Nation”. As with all BowieNet competitions, you must enter from an @davidbowie.com address. The randomly selected winners will be announced this time next week, or thereabouts.
An exhibition based on ‘Art Crazy Nation’ here in the UK, is currently well under way at the