A somewhat cheesing off turn of events has unfolded. An impostor has hove into view. Or, more accurately, a whole flagoon of impostors. The humble diary of a thirty something art dealer finds itself the victim of a most unsavoury rip off attempt.

Some six or seven months ago now, an art publication I was unfamiliar with plopped through my letter-box. It had been suggested to me by one or two avid readers (OK, OK my old Pa and Great Aunt Agatha) that I should attempt to get the diary published. So, with my usual rejection of opportunism in favour of obsessive forward planning, I immediately emailed said publication two recent articles and asked them if they’d like to publish them in the name of PR for me and free copy for them. “Oh yes please,” they responded and fairly snatched my arm off. A pleasing result all round then. Nice. All proceeded apace.

A few months later I get a phone call saying their gallery advertisers have seen my somewhat scintillating and not un-droll column (if I do say so myself) and fancy a go themselves. As advertisers come first apparently, they can’t say no to this, so in the interest of saving my column would I care to advertise?

Firstly, I do not advertise and secondly, I may be vain but I am not that vain. So, the answer from Knowlesy, was a resounding, no thank you.

In that case ‘my’ column would be published three times only, after which one of their advertisers would be offered the back page. Fine! I retorted. What I had not understood from the conversation was that my fellow gallerists, along with the back page, were also to be offered my very own diary of a … format, as written by me for the last two years and as appears in various other periodicals.

I showed the offending text to the celestial Yvette - herself a well respected and published art historian of ten years standing, whose article on Foucault change hands for not inconsiderable sums. “Very derivative isn’t it?” she remarked, laconically, “the writing’s turgid though.”

People see something done well and assume it’s easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy, you see. Well, the proof is in the Eton Mess, what what.

However, after an initial burst of irritation, I’ve decided to take this whole business as a huge compliment. Does Barbara Streisand feel threatened by the orange wenches warbling out ‘the way we were’ to the accompaniment of a poorly synthesised electric keyboard in the cocktail lounge of a four star hotel in Sharm el Sheikh? My bottom she does. And neither shall I over this.

Rather, it shall be an opportunity to learn not to rest on one’s laurels, full of self-congratulation for successes achieved, but to do what I do best and crack on undeterred with a few more good ideas. No one trick pony, I. Certainly not. There’s no use holding on to your one decent idea out of fear that a second or third might never appear. No, one must have the confidence and the bottle to let go and make room for the next triumph. I’m not English for nothing you know. In these times of doom and gloom, of credit crunch, housing market collapse and redundancies by the thousand, the Dunkirk spirit shall prevail.

To that end, although not from that beginning, significant changes are afoot at Beverley Knowles Fine Art. Before long a leaner, fitter and altogether far edgier figure will be cutting the mustard around these parts. More on that anon. In the meantime, watch this space, dear reader…. and be vigilant - only the real McCoy will do!

CURRENTLY SHOING AT BEVERLEY KNOWLES FINE ART
In Bed With The Girls, until 1 November 2008
The Girls are emerging British artists Andrea Blood and Zoe Sinclair, both alumni of Central St Martins who met at school aged 16. The Girls work consists of staged portrait photography, including self portraiture, and performance art. The duo have previously exhibited at The Photographers' Gallery, The ICA, The National Portrait Gallery and the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art.

ABOUT BEVERLEY KNOWLES FINE ART

Since its launch in 2002 Beverley Knowles Fine Art has been developing an international reputation for championing women artists, dedicated to assisting the development of talented young graduates into successful challenging artists, as well as showing the work of more established contemporary masters. The gallery programme promotes interrelations between artists, curators and collectors to bring into being a platform that explores exciting new creative possibilities.

Now and then I come across something so awe inspiring it reminds me, even if only for a few minutes, seconds, or perhaps more honestly, only for a flash of a second – maybe that’s all it takes – to remember that contrary to how it absolutely seems on an almost 24/7 basis – I am not the centre of the world.

Yes, oh yes, it’s a rude awakening - but not all bad.

The other day I was in what an acquaintance of mine, Shirlee, would call a ‘funk’. I would call her a friend, but as I have to pay her for the illusion of friendship I’m not sure it entirely counts.

So I’m sitting there at my desk in an absolute hump. Not one of my rages, although they’re a bit special too. No, this was a hump alright. Everything and everyone was absolute unmitigated rubbish and nothing was ever going to be even as acceptable as OK ever again.

I was trawling through my email wondering why so many monstrously tedious people kept sending me so many monstrously tedious emails (it was a silly hump my beloved friends, I do appreciate and value you, please forgive my momentary foolishness) when I came across an email from somebody I didn’t know, telling me about a viral marketing campaign committed by so-called artists group mindheist, upon Martin Creed’s Work No 850, currently showing at Tate Britain. Famously, and of course, not un-controversially, Creed won the Turner Prize in 2001 with Work No 227 – subtitle – The Lights Go On and Off – in which, errr, the lights go on and off, at periodic five second intervals.

Don’t even get me started. Scoff if you want but you know what happened to Doubting Thomas. Actually I’m not sure I do know what happened to Doubting Thomas, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t win the lottery. It’s easy to scoff and sneer and look down your nose but it doesn’t get you anywhere. It’s that self-respect thing Groucho.

Martin Creed’s Work No 850 consists of a relay of semi-professional athletes running the 86 meters down the length of the main Duveen Galleries, every thirty seconds, as fast as they can.

For me, to see this was to lift the heart. To see this was to get over myself.

Why?

Because the profoundest truths can only be expressed in the simplest terms. The fundamental straight forwardness of this work contains, investigates and communicates, so many of the most complex facets of human existence, but it does so in a way that even a child can engage with, enjoy and learn from, but at the same time, in a way that I imagine, even the most compassionate, intelligent, and self-aware being would be able to draw something from.

The simplicity, beauty and profundity of Martin Creed’s work by-passed my brain and touched my soul.

The runners represent the consistency we all long for in an inconsistent world. The regularity and predictability a source of great comfort amidst the chaos and senselessness that we struggle, always unsuccessfully, to make sense of.

The work is like life – the runners come and go just as we do. At the same time it is the opposite of life apparent – regular, rhythmic, predictable. It’s a paradox and at the same time, a non-paradox. It’s wonderful.

‘I want to make things. I’m not sure why, but I think it’s got something to do with other people. I think I want to try to communicate with other people, because I want to say “hullo”, because I want to express myself and because I want to be loved.’ Martin Creed

It doesn’t come more universal than that.

And so it seems Puma thought they fancied a bit of the universal action. Puma and mindheist apparently cooked up the idea of sending what I assume, from the look of him, was a professional actor, to interact with Work No 850, and grab a slice of this particular love pie for themselves.

The result is an advert for pumps that somehow wavers on the border between the grotesque and the ingenious.

The camera follows a handsome blonde athletic looking guy up the steps of Tate Britain – freeze frame on his sexy black Pumas whilst the funky music kicks in. He takes the steps two at a time, then hangs around the Duveen Galleries reading his newspaper (I haven’t figured out why he couldn’t bide his time looking at the art, but I guess that says it all) until one of Creeds runners appears, doing flat out, whereupon the Puma wearing actor/artist runs ahead of him – seemingly for his life – looking over his shoulder shouting the words “I didn’t know she was your wife”. Clearly mindheist scrimped on the script-writers.

Probably I shouldn’t be wasting so much time further promoting Puma’s offensive piss take in the face of Creed’s brilliance, but it’s interesting that a global mega corp such as puma should choose to piggy back on a piece of conceptual art. I don’t know what Martin Creed made of it, but in many ways, whatever mindheist’s intention, it’s hugely flattering, if not exactly respectfully executed. It only goes to re-iterate how important this work is. You don’t negate something, you don’t mimic it, you don’t attempt to undermine it, if you can’t see, on some level, conscious or otherwise, the truth of it. If something isn’t relevant to you, you simply don’t engage with it.

But enough about Puma and mindheist and their silly subterfuge.

Martin Creed’s work is about love, about our universal need to love and be loved. Sorry to bang on slightly, I know this is my pet subject at the moment, but it always seems to come back to the love. Without love what is there? What else is the point? Really? What else matters?

In the words of Work No 300 (2003) “the whole world + the work = the whole world.”

and in the words of Work No 790 (2007) “everything is going to be alright.”

After that what else is there to say?



Links

http://www.martincreed.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TWIrZYC25g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqmDwMTj7zY&watch_response

http://artlife.blogspot.com/

CURRENTLY SHOING AT BEVERLEY KNOWLES FINE ART
In Bed With The Girls, until 1 November 2008
The Girls are emerging British artists Andrea Blood and Zoe Sinclair, both alumni of Central St Martins who met at school aged 16. The Girls work consists of staged portrait photography, including self portraiture, and performance art. The duo have previously exhibited at The Photographers' Gallery, The ICA, The National Portrait Gallery and the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art.

ABOUT BEVERLEY KNOWLES FINE ART
Since its launch in 2002 Beverley Knowles Fine Art has been developing an international reputation for championing women artists, dedicated to assisting the development of talented young graduates into successful challenging artists, as well as showing the work of more established contemporary masters. The gallery programme promotes interrelations between artists, curators and collectors to bring into being a platform that explores exciting new creative possibilities.

I don’t mind Carnival that much actually. I don’t particularly mind that if I go out in my car on Sunday I won’t be able to park in my street, or for about 2 miles around, until Tuesday. Neither do I that much mind finding the motor covered in unidentifiable brown goo and, more surprisingly perhaps, talcum powder. I don’t mind lying in bed at 10 o’clock on a Sunday morning, nursing a slightly delicate head after Viksie’s wedding on the Saturday, with full on 40 foot speakers driving past not 20 yards from my headboard. I don’t mind my entire flat vibrating alarmingly for the greater part of two days, or police helicopters constantly flapping about overhead. I can even accept that in a congregation of revellers that large it’s almost inevitable that somebody will have one rum and coke too many and end up glassing their best mate or whatever. It’s not my cup of tea, but I can happily accept that some people dig this stuff. Each to their own and all that. I don’t even mind hoards of twenty stone women parading up and down my street in spangly leotards. I quite like that even.

But what I do object to, is fried chicken. Fried chicken glued to every conceivable surface of Ladbroke Grove for days afterwards. What is it with fried chicken? Why must fried chicken contaminate an otherwise perfectly jolly bank holiday week-end? It’s beyond the pale actually. It’s just not right. If they could have carnival without the fried chicken I’d be all for it. But the fried chicken is too much.

So I went instead to the Royal Academy, where I was delighted to escape from the fried chicken, if not the horror.

I slightly suspect, were he English and alive in the early part of the twenty first century, Vilhelm Hammershoi would be the sort of person to use the word toilet. Actually, that’s going a bit easy on it. He’s clearly an obsessive-compulsive control freak with major intimacy issues… and probably uses the word toilet to boot.

In the half million or so paintings of his own flat he treats us to, quite a number include the solitary figure of his wife. Only two of these share with us a view of her face as opposed to the back of her head, and in both of these she is looking distinctly a) green and b) suicidal. The man clearly couldn’t communicate with other human beings. Not even, or perhaps especially not, his own wife.

People compare him to Vermeer. OK, so they’re domestic interiors. And apart from that? I just don’t see it. I rather think it’s only from Hammershoi’s own borrowings that we receive the impression of any commonality with Vermeer. Vermeer gives us warmth, generosity, narrative and human interconnectedness. He does not give us Armageddon – the Aftermath, death by loneliness, and profound disconnection from self and other. Neither does he give us clouds that look more like an invasion of UFOs (Tuesday’s Wood, 1893).

Whistler’s another one. I can’t have it I’m afraid. Whistler’s palette is beautiful beyond words and incredibly subtle. Hammershoi’s is incredibly drab. The thing that’s missing from Hammershoi’s work is any sign of life. Of energy, enquiry, passion, faith, trust, love for God’s sake. There’s no love in these paintings. How can something be described as meditative that is so devoid of these vital signs?

Would it be a cheap joke to suggest he might as well have painted the toilet and been done with it?

Oh dear. It’s been a long week-end.

I had to update my cv this week for the first time since 2002. What a pointless thing it seemed. What has Beverley Knowles done since 2002? This and that I suppose.

What did I learn about life filling in spreadsheets for a photographer? What did I learn about life listening to a lecturer in New Cross, banging on for an hour and a half about arborial thought? (“There’s nothing to get darlink”. If there’s nothing to get what has been the point of those sounds you’ve been emitting for nearly ninety minutes?) What did I learn about life sitting at a dinner table hidden behind a panelled wall at Sotheby’s staring at a piece of duck? What did I learn about life standing on my feet for days on end in a glorified tent? What did I learn about life learning how to touch type in Gloucester Road? Everything? Nothing?

I learned about life when I watched somebody pull my heart out of my chest and fling it to the pavement. I was also watching them do the same to their own.

I learned about life when I shared my pillow with a little yellow butterfly. Or was it a moth? It was still there in the morning when I opened my eyes, but gone when I got back from the shower.

I learn about life every time I meet my friend’s red border collie. (Jez is love.)

I learn about life when the leaves start to fall. When the wind blows. When the sun shines.

On the other hand don’t I already know everything I’ll ever need to know? Aren’t these things just reminders to me of that which I already know?

Is the painting I am looking at now going to be the same painting in ten years time? Will it be the same painting next year or even tomorrow? No. Of course not. It isn’t about the painting. It’s about me. Without me the painting is nothing. Without the painting, I am nothing. We are both nothing. And yet we are everything.

It all happens in the space in between.

What am I apart from a series of stories? My friend Sally was telling me the story of the German athlete who had to have psychotherapy because every time she failed to win a race she thought she was a bad person. Isn’t that amazing. It’s such nonsense and yet we all do it. All day every day.

I am not my failures. By the same token, I am not my successes. I am not my business. Nor am I my leisure time. I am not my stuff. I am not my favourite Emma Hope shoes. I am not my parents, nor my children, nor my friends. I am not my teacher. I am not my education. I am not my work experience. I am not my telephone number or the last book I read, the last picture I looked at, the last film I watched, or the last person I kissed. I am not my thoughts. And yet I am all of these things. And none of them.

Am I nothing?

Maybe I am nothing.

Maybe I am just love, waiting patiently for the doors to open so that I can be free.

Maybe I should put that on my cv. Or maybe not.