Merlin Carpenter Matthew Collings Our paintings and graphics throw Edwards’ first name at this sensi- discourse of “medium specificity” might be seen as the parents of clear for them how to respond to desire to be a “Goldsmith’s artist” and embarrassment, rather than fact these later developments framework for analysing art’s pop- From my point of view, Carpenter’s It featured work by a handful of Matthew’s style produces any Carpenter and his cronies, plus the opened up within the media: eyes are the wrong colour). It is support group. In this review he Surely society was abolished by But when is this “present”? And referring to a story about Lucas forced to accept that bullshit is as His paintings are brutal abstracts more aesthetic. Some are more Our paintings are against this ap- a good one. But should writing be Media Guy Our PaintinG s down the glove to what’s going tive point. (Perhaps while polishing is an intellectual talking shop full the popularization process having the success of the big push. In on the most grand seriousness. A scene arrives had already terminated yBa, ularity is worth reading. ” (p 124) art practice is often funny. New figures discussed in the book, with serious results in terms of actual more commercially successful ones “a space where the avant-garde‘s certain that Buchloh’s language often seems to be communicating Thatcher? I am not defined by for what audience? This process involving an accident with a piano, natural as breathing and as vital that do little for a renewal of poetic. But with all of them I think proach but we don’t refute the about a relation to history and a on now. They are not nihilistic. his halo of populist know-how he of ingenious possibilities. audiences approaching half a 1987 Matthew Collings and Stuart pathetic level. It’s not bizarre to do an MA; it that demands only enthusiasm. which leaves jet skis are exhibited in front of his fashionable and unfashionable thought, and not only the kind he regards as his intellectual inferi- former claim to disregard the is deliberately and strenuously to friends who share a set of short- nationhood and do not want to obviously breaks down outside a or one where a follower of to existence. His bullshit is strong. painting, but their inclusion does that there is a secret visual quality idea that the entire world of specific notion of cultural political avant This review from eleven years ago They are not ironic. They can’t be slipped to an association with Somewhere in it is an idea about million each, Sarah with Time Out Morgan were still saying that might be to do it for the reason There’s something people aren’t Matthew looking The book doesn’t celebrate impor- makes his judgements irrelevant paintings of fashion models, to artworks hung together. produced by accident and against ors in the rigour of his practice. (It’s persistence of social memory em- bourgeois-resistant where hand expressions, enigmatic be. Out of the three problematic certain middle-class culture and Carpenter’s (trained by the master, Yet surely there must be a more at least nod towards half-recog- which is important. The nation is appearances is an epiphenome- potentialities or about serving up claims I am a right-wing backslider read as an expression of dema- Lionel.) His sensational count of time as material. This has tangi- and Matthew with the chattering there was no such thing as ‘British Carpenter states, but since he has saying. The book fleshes out the quite exposed. tance when one-liner sensation- for a serious discussion about and demonstrate that art is a luxury the grain. Compare Collings no accident that Liam Gillick meets bedded in institutional practices Carpenter’s is virtually indistin- beyond the circle. The hierarchical concepts “Art”, “Crazy” and its related economic conditions. after the book came out, to turn transformative way to engage nised and nearly-repressed sur- crazy about art now, but they non of the movements of capital. a salad of interestingly ironic Disclaimer: I am in Matthew incapable of genuine criticality. terialised, post-industrial produc- “eight” in four pages seems to win bility for us as we struggle with classes who had tuned in to BBC art’ (True Brit: An Enquiry into manufactured this reason himself unsaid by picturing the scene alism changes to sensationalism within the contexts he addresses. commodity. Students assist him at Nice, light and fashionable, to Benjamin H.D. Buchloh. Does Argos in the same sentence, or that and discursive conventions has guishable from mine. The only implications clash with statements “Nation”, the third is most illumi- You do not lose anything, certainly away with a shudder if we ever with art. plus-value. In the book Wragg don’t know what it is they are It fuels our interest in heightened Great British compost? Collings’s new book Art Crazy I disagree and I will explain why. I tion. They start from a conceptual all arguments. In fact there are colour-leads we’ve set up but not 2’s Newsnight and drifted into The National Character, Artscribe no. it only highlights the subjectivity almost entirely in terms of hilari- with an addition of one-liner Not accidentally, the “Marxists” he one of his private views by dress- though. the former’s adherence to the sur- he enjoys giving a sly kick to Tacita been exchanged for the recogni- exception is when he directly hinting at revolutionary egalitari- nating about not aesthetically, by clearly stating accidentally met) agrees with struts in front of his paintings like looking at.” seeing. For some of “us” the challenge in Nation and his Art Crazy Nation should say initially that in the past, basis, two people from diverse two, both trivial. The year of yet adequately followed through. Late Show (1989—1995). The 61, 1987). The market-led lifestyle of his narrative. ous discomfort. politics. Since he wrote this review chooses to mention are Marxists ing up in colourful versions of Abu Carpenter ironises perceived face actually change the terms of Dean). Instead it expresses what it’s tion that it is precisely from the quotes a heavyweight. Or else anism. He might mean that some Collings’s milieu. It’s clear that the “us” element in the contingency of the bubble. me in a frivolous chat, that yBa This tautology leads to mythologi- a pre-ironic rooster. (Milton Keynes The passage continues: “Or Our work is careful and laborious, all of this is not to find a language Show in Milton Keynes. So it with the books and TV program- fields turn over and look at lost Kippenberger’s death is stated as art features he made for this pro- culture embodied in Frieze could Carpenter has achieved high lite whose main Ghraib outfits, to show the con- vacuity. the artistic paradigm, as Buchloh like to have to hear about their reflection of these conventions that incorporates phrases and terms of the work criticises the social the booklet doesn’t mean “nation- The offensiveness of yBa, which “still rules.” (p 197) zation and the reintroduction of Significantly, too, Matthew has Gallery Bulletin). they’re horrified by it and they with the aim of producing an im- that is invisible to Collings. This maybe a bit ungrateful for me to mes Carpenter mentions, my prac- knowledge, a lost interest – colour. 1998. And the printers have It therefore cannot serve an gramme were a curiosity. They only have been a Frankenstein But more importantly, it was his But, since he has never specified status in fashion-conscious sectors concept is self- It might be helpful to consult a nection between consumerism demanded of Warhol, or preserve obedient disobedience all the time. the only remaining potentials immediately recognisable as conditions in which art is seen and alism” but, “Today one is often Matthew only partly recognised, notions of quality on another level. now become a fan of supercon- don’t know what they’re looking age in which there is no pictorial has already happened. It is more suggest that he is an art buffoon. tice was negation. I was comment- It used to be part of what an flipped a photograph so abstract informative purpose of any kind were not quite a celebration of monster in the eighties dreams of turning point between being this, only implied it by over-cele- of the global art world, through promotion. psychotherapist about the content and atrocity. Banks are Bad is Milton Keynes is a city designed at least the hope of doing so? The critical sensibility behind my for resistance can be mobilized.“ belonging to a heavyweight’s understood, while others are blind asked to see art in such-and-such was that it installed low-resolution You can portray him as BritArt’s The amnesiac closed circle has an servative Evening Standard art at either. They believe what absolute. to find a language that obliterates Collings has presented a vast ing on a scene dominated by artist knew. It doesn’t have to be paintings by Carpenter appear re- for art history, let alone for a criti- young British art but did introduce Collings and Morgan (his succes- a consumer of bration, it has all been rather less stunts in which a comically abject of this insult. definitely a good joke. Critique is twenty-five years ago, resembling And there is a more general ques- books interrogates authority, even (Neo-Avant garde and Culture armoury, whether it be Buchloh or, to them, but the show forgot to a way…” It is useful to look at local- fake alternative cultures in the Judas or defender. It doesn’t inevitable side-effect: an actual critic Brian Sewell; he is warmly they’re told because they don’t him when it surfaces. It needs to number of TV programmes in the conceptual concerns antithetical anymore. Is that a by-product versed, as if in a mirror reflection. cally informed analysis. Moreover some of the key themes and players sor as editor). Where Artscribe foreign art theory Consuming theory, even one as useful than venturing a single version of institution critique plays critiqued. And of course banks a cross between Liam Gillick sculp- tion. Who could police a notion when that authority is interrogating Industry, p 335). in later passages, Homi Bhaba. mention it. But the exhibition was ism here. Carpenter is against the place of a dead culture and ex- matter. He repeats time and time swing towards the old-fashioned praised in Art Crazy Nation. He have any culture of art, only a For them to be more one would track the inevitable contortions of UK over the last fifteen years to my interest in the history of of alienation and atomisation, Mistakes are regrettable. But the his own standpoint becomes in- as well as cover relatively serious had been terrified of “theory” recklessly formulated as “foreign clear opinion, even a wrong one. a role. Perhaps he guesses that amongst really are bad. But the implication ture and Argos. I was struck by of history that is more ideological- the art-world (as it continues to do But far from negotiating this space, about opening up a different idea of Nation, but the form of pected “the nation” — meaning again the eighties commonplace that occurs once the historical also crops up in the show as a thoughtless attraction to it from have to start by saying what they the media as shamelessly as he and also written dodgy books and form. My collaborative practice or the radical overturning of an second does no harm to a reading distinguishable in a self-imposed art history like and reverential art theory,” contradicts the earlier He went through the whole nine- The fact that the object fall-out of these opportunists could be is never-ending futility. how it had to built be sufficiently ly rigorous? Who controls history so, with its controversial assertion on the soft border from where a For example Collings allows him- kind of distinction: formal or visual work that Sarah Lucas and Tracey people — to accept it. People did that art has changed, that it has contradictions are buried. So what waxworkmade seeing it in the media.” are. Collings just follows and total- does, but never make his right magazine articles about contem- with Emma Biggs, which has been exclusive field of knowledge? of the paintings, any more than morass of indifference between Donald Judd. “Not quite” is an ambiguity that towards art, Artscribe was hospitable to theory; assertion about fearing theory. ties without ever widely noticed events such as the Matthew of the future. Irony has limitations; it can only far away for there to be no chance after a bourgeois gossip history that Kunst = Capital). dialectic can be tracked, Collings self to talk about “punky, working connectedness: a single unity Emin made in the mid-1990s accept the sense of ideological jettisoned history and that any- are the signs of this? The nicest by two ex-St. This artwork mocks Sewell, as Our paintings fight ignorance. ly simplifies the recent shifts in art turns. In this book intentions are porary art. He writes in a journalis- going on for fifteen years, also We think it’s the former. And our the same accident would harm ironic critique asks to be examined. Out of sixty as editor I brought in a range of once saying Saying “stop” isn’t necessary to “The Opening” and “Tate Café,” is One can see Art Crazy Nation as go hand in hand with despair, and it could merge into London. But which fully includes its own It was in that same spirit that I slips into relations of authority, class origins” in the Art Crazy created out of different self-con- would not have been possible clearing, the Mr. Blobby moment, thing is possible. It is not that this is one is that Collings has included Martins students. Carpenter is aware. The book de- historical discourse towards lost and become examples of in- tic, diaristic style derived from says no to something, but propos- work, via a tortuously complex paintings by Biggs and me. and celebration My standpoint is clearly signalled items I wrote and presented for writers as frequent contributors, and slowly starting to pick up sup- “stop”. the enquiry that both books just as visually bereft as anything an attempt to lasso various parts despair isn’t necessarily a good it is nevertheless a satellite, full of opposite and is made the decision to collaborate following a line that proceeds from Nation Show booklet. What does tained parts, like a collage. without the Murdoch Press, with- but not what was put in its place. untrue, it just depends where you three old fart abstract painters in scribes his criticism as “reactionary” In the early eighties UK art critic visuality and me- tentionality. More sophisticated Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan, Richard es something as well. I plan to procedure of balancing and And to return to them, they are of celebrity. in this exchange: “She asked, The Late Show, many of them forty including Art & Language, port for the attempt to become engage in, which is neither con- he has done in the past, is a prob- of post yBa London art-related prompt for any kind of revolution- family houses all the more de- Teflon-coated? If Carpenter is going to be this with Biggs. But why do we run on Bob Dylan to The he mean? Punk or working class? out Wapping, without Thatcherism, And the point Matthew misses to- see things from. Commonplaces the book and show. They are de- but says his attacks on contem- Peter Fuller rejected all modernist dium specificity. Carpenter doesn’t give an models of intersubjectivity and Branson, Jack Kerouac, Tama examine and explain what that harmonizing, sets out the terms achieved by a procedure in which ‘What’s the line of the book again?’ minutes long, only four of short Diedrich Diederichsen, Jutta an actor in the emerging London ventional explanation of artworks, lem for Biggs and me, in contrast subculture (including ones I am ary motivation. Art that only pressing since they were built a policeman it might be worth look- to the battlefield of contemporary Guardian, from The landscape he Being an example of something is without local culturally specific ex- day is that trying to keep Damien like these are hangovers from pre- scribed as “marginalised” and porary art’s sacred cows can be art, replacing it with an unbroken example of the unoriginality or work within and around the media Janowitz, Jay McInerny, Tom proposition is. Carpenter’s original of this visual argument. revisions must be made, and I said it was a description of the duration were about figures con- Koether and John Miller, who scene. After some more years nor description and analysis to the critical proposals inherent attached to) and drag them back reflects despair, as his does, is a couple of years after the death ing at his website. Writing about art, to impale ourselves on the Tony Blair to This line up is the same in its unex- paints is terribly Carpenter is getting carried away. not the same as pressions of the operations of cap- Hirst’s 1988 Freeze alive with all vious more significant shifts. “non-ironic”. The possibility of this “quite effective.” (pp 179–180) tradition of English Romanticism over-simplification of thoughts are already active. These models Wolfe and Nicky Haslam. He talks text is in grey. My interruptions colours altered, but we don’t see art world from the point of view of nected to young British art (yBa). could not be said to be unaware at The Late Show, which publicly of gallery finances, but instead is in our paintings. inside the old killerfence. But problem. Also, its jokes tend to be of utopian planning. A suitable fashion and the artworld over a bayonets of irony and despair, and George W. Bush. plained arbitrary disconnected- ill-defined. Rather than a “landscape” of art, thinking about it. I agree that according to a certain ital. His argument expresses an its ideological inconsistencies is Unless there is a critical relation to inclusion could be seen as a posi- and the “sacred”. Is Matthew expressed in Art Crazy Nation depend on precisely the kind of over the head of art world insiders are colour-coded. Collings is infamous for naming these alterations as a matter of someone who wishes it could be of it, or cowed by the majesty played out his shift from interna- about elevating the parts of not only do these scenes anyhow appreciated by those who already testbed for a new type of cura- period of many years, he appears exhibit our wounds? Because some ness as the list at the beginning of the quote refers to a chain of as- set of concerns, being an example element of neo-liberal thinking: the just impossible fourteen years later. the moment of conceptual art tive result of Collings’s shift to the Another change is Matthew’s tiptoeing in the same direction? about the work of artists he calls detailed, contextual knowledge direct to an imaginary bourgeois Richie Edwards lead singer of diagnosing mistakes. Instead, the better.” (p 219) As for celebrity, The style became gradually more of art. tional consumer to national player the scene that are ambiguous. In order to include these develop- not coalesce, unfortunately he agree with them. Passivity isn’t torial amnesia. Teflon-coated to a startling degree. battles are worth having. There has the review, of supposed literary sociations set up by a particular of a hegemonic reality principle pessimistic conclusion that capital Trying to keep and/or its modernist antecedents, right. The assistant at Milton recent affirmations of unexplained For several years he has written a old farts. that Matthew denies. audience who retain their com- challenging misrepresentation Manic Street aim is to bring out multiple visual situations involving it are featured, relaxed and I think theory, as the philosophi- on the celebrity circuit, Matthew ments he now has to write about does not know enough about any really disturbed. According to the press release it is The latest addition is a cris de to be something better, something influences, which contains a hair- series of installations. Repeated in (as Buchloh calls postmodernism) has already succeeded in making something open Hirst’s ability to create sophisticat- and a complementary attempt to Keynes Gallery told me that one retinal or formal diary for Modern Painters, the Our ideas of resistance differ from mon sense about “Modern Art’s” self explanation Preachers on “Infamous” suggests mass com- rhythms and produce patterns but the mood is disturbing not fun, chatty in line with From on high, Carpenter produces cal context in which the difference eventually came out and support- True, in the new book, there is “Marxists” and “politically correct” particular one of them to explain If our paintings avoid jokes they the first show Matthew has curated coeur about the meta-politics of more transformative than dresser as well as the UK’s fourth the brochure it comes originally is not the same as reflecting on us all identical, which doesn’t closes it down. ed visual effects through a collage unearth the genesis and develop- of these three, Gary Wragg, was qualities. At this point Carpenter says some- magazine Fuller his comic, dematerialised ones. supposed excesses. This has be- world-view Biggs and I share. national TV. ment. I could say Carpenter is that constantly change. The paint- and celebrity culture is character- wider changes a transformation and then finds between art and not-art is ex- ed yBa with more criticism. He rips into artists and writers (like John who any of these people are and are not nostalgic for a form of for an institution, and he seems to his politicised practice. He quotes Carpenter’s obedient nihilistic richest citizen. from the book, which isn’t about hegemony. Our paintings reflect leave anyone much to fight for. aesthetic is praised in Art Crazy ment of postmodernism in the my teacher at art school. This is an- thing about the subject that most founded. Carpenter is aware the diary We identify with Islamic decoration Merlin Carpenter 2002 come more and more pronounc- social, political and aesthetic “infamous” for writing an article ings are not immutable statements. ised as a new kind of national in the UK media. a suitably awesome world-historic plored, is important to any artist. gusto in his 1997 The comedy of Blimey! deflates Michael Landy and Tacita Dean, Roberts, Julian Stallabrass and why they do what they do. All he artistic sincerity that is already well have enjoyed it. He has managed Heidegger; then asks himself who knowingness. Be brave artist class relations but often comments on a hegemonic knowledge sys- Nation, but the book laughs at the sense of the media’s overtaking other Collings inaccuracy, but it is interests Biggs and me. mocked Fuller’s rosy-spectacled in mosques, but also with paint- ed over the course of Matthew’s explanation of our paintings full of idiotic claims. First a pattern seems to be put “sickness.” This comment contin- force to appear to cause it: the It was present in the jokes and book Blimey!. gusto. When it says artists are and not before time .”A gate, JJ Charlesworth) with the same sees are the images put out by known. The viewer is confronted to convey his idea that art is a seri- on earth is Heidegger. He scratch- warriors – rise up and fight! What is art history? This book, part- non-theoretically on class distinc- tem that operates in the spotlit, He is right to point out the neo- aura of artistic genius constructed of the meaning functions of art, true I spoke to Interest in formal qualities is not a view of a revived British tradition ings done in ten minutes by Bob Thanks to Anthony Davies and career. The privatised official together in a certain way, then an- ues: “Instead of avoiding the media. In reality my writing and playfulness of my criticism, and it’s “top” or “very good” it’s clear it that’s interesting, I must photo- cynical tone previously reserved public relations by configurations that appear to ous form of light entertainment. es his head about the difference published by David Bowie and tion. Post-yBa figures whose centre-stage part of the artworld, Darwinistic notion that anybody around him by a PR team. then to even address the subject him one after- In an art school environment this change of heart. It is the core of based on Samuel Palmer and and Roberta Smith. We are fasci- Isabelle Graw. culture represented by Channel 4 His opinions on art are occasionally A mistake that must have rung other configuration appears, then plague, people want to touch presenting on The Late Show was there in the refusals Biggs and I wouldn’t serve any useful function graph it”, he imagines her thinking. for moronic entrepreneurs. I think departments Press releases are mocked in Art be constantly on the move. Nothing jarred or felt too heavy. between the concept that collec- Matthew tries to see himself from launched in Selfridges, only serves family names grace bottles of fine which is where we want to achieve has potentially more cultural of a historical break becomes noon in 1986 would constitute “teaching.” the scenarios I’m in, in my books Henry Moore. nated by art’s past and can see needed someone to translate spot on, the type of things you do alarm bells for his non-art audi- another. We don’t do it by drawing others who might have it.” (p 196) conventional for highbrow TV. make in producing our work. as a quote in the artist’s CV. But it is not that simple. The wind this has confused him, and puts Crazy Nation, but the logic that Perception is challenged. Passive Sarah Staton’s Krazy and Gilbert tors are scum who must die, and all sides and imagine criticisms to commodify a snapshot of a wine, are contrasted with artists of something: to criticise a consen- power than anyone else: Collings tells us that people like tautologous. There is nothing to and TV shows, where I’m confront- that in alienation from the rich This text was published in German emerging art contexts into more- not see written down but always ence. One would only have to up charts or plans – the subtlety Years after I left that programme I Biggs refuses the rhetoric of the has changed. Collings is trying to him very close to Sunday Times/ suggests it is from this kind of consumption is resisted. More and George’s Leafers looked the fact that, “kindly enough,” they like “breezy liberal”. But his self- conjuncture. What it fails to do is the same wave whose immediate sus, based on marketing ideas and “Banal ideas, wrong ideas, popular Sarah Lucas retain some charisma. compare it to. and he seemed quite nice. ed by something alienating And this “secret visual quality” is vocabulary of making, is loss. In Texte zur Kunst No. 45, March of-the-same fun, to rewrite history hear people say. For instance he signal the many inaccuracies and of the differences we work with Collings developed his basic ideas changed to a different approach individual and the spiritual. I However his work has always respond to a backlash against the Rupert Murdoch material that the book gets its on this in the next section, as great. My work looked all right, buy his work. Perhaps a truly rig- criticism is manic self-vaccination. play out in the text the contradic- response to something they don’t academic ones, about what ideas—anything will do as long as That just proves You can’t instead of something I might find very dubious. Such qualities exist, Our work reflects on the way the 2002 for the new Blairite ruling class. talks about Gallery owner casual disregard for facts in his would make it impossible. It’s a di- in the mid-eighties as editor of with the TV series This Is Modern refuse excess. simultaneously carried a kind of first two generations of yBa that territory. This out- Scepticism doesn’t have a date; it content is contorted. Carpenter turns to reviewing but maybe out of place. But even orous outburst is the one that It also does not work as dialectics tions inherent in the relationships understand is to want to punch it. abstract art is allowed to do today. its plugged directly into the pre- the opposite. I’m not sure I use this word, but I describe art from There is seriousness and serious- What is striking behind the play worthwhile. Affirmation of a kind but are not necessarily carriers of baby of making has been thrown He has become a national institu- Maureen Paley’s foreign accent new book, including the part on rect process. I paint; Biggs creates Artscribe, a specialist publication Art, whose playfully anarchic tone “atmosphere” of criticism towards already happened four years ago dated skepticism has a relationship to an idea or an exhibition. the bad art was semi-OK looking. goes, “All this art is crap anyway!” because there is no initial propo- involved. For all Buchloh’s limita- We do not make parodies of for- sent and there are sparks coming am sure that in relation to artists within art. ness. In Carpenter’s world, visual of false coyness is the recurring occurs frequently in Blimey! pub- anything except out with the critical bathwater, and tion. I regret that I see Matthew’s when speaking to German collec- myself where there are eight the colours, decides where to put mainly concerned with German was a development out of a book Frieze instrumentalized both for yBa. The breathless enthusiasm of and was brewing before that (see set of ideas. Not for the last time and jacket blurbs. He sees what The Sarah Lucas and Jake and Until recently, when it was re- sition. We live with the media, but tions at least he tries to stay on top And he never says which artists are malism. We produce patterns that out of the wire.” it’s meaningless, as they are the paucity is compensated for by theme of offensive exclusivity, lished five years before theArt money. I feel sorry for Merlin. is a critique of that loss. Response constructed 2013 work as being right-wing these tors. I also like his explanation errors in four pages, to render it them, and how to amend them. and American art. The explosion I had written in the meantime, the sake of design, style and apo- Blimey! was quite easily readable Poster Studio, “They’re All Going Carpenter reveals anxiety about he is allowed to see, which he Dinos Chapman pieces were moved, the earliest article in the the directions from which you of the con ditions able to articulate this landscape multiply. You can only see one at (This is Modern As Carpenter knows, this is a satir- same as anyone else. massed hints of substance in the (notwithstanding piety at the end Crazy Nation exhibition was put on. It is convenient to have this notion days since I like him and I feel of why his photo is always on the more or less Success in terms of the finished of art into mainstream culture in called Blimey!, an account of life litical effectiveness. The change as bad faith: Down,” tzk no. 22, 1996). Art Crazy keeping up with fashion. Without writes down, plus errors. In the Garde dumb but not really annoying. sequence was this review of Art observe and involve yourself with of his own Limitations? It’s great to be hit and which ones a time, but they are all there simul- Art, 1999, p 34). ical assessment of the institutional A myth of personal specialness is dimension of the Idea, which rath- of the article about intersubjectivi- (For example, a one-word head- of the ambiguity of formal attracted towards his insane cover of his own books: to make useless as an ar- All publishing and broadcasting is result is efficiency: order and nineties London was rather a lived in an art scene. in Matthew was gradual but obvi- Tracey, isn’t it Blimey! looks at the problem of Nation seeks to include post-yBa exception the book’s subjects are few cases where there is more Contributions by Bank and John Crazy Nation. He constructs a that world can be very different. ennunciation. round the head with borrowed are just fodder. Language like “fodder” puts taneously in the same object. propaganda that justified the rise often employed to explain impor- er than genuinely energising a ty). You can’t come from the media ing, “Formalism,” followed by the meaning if your idea of making is Matthew Collings 2013 speed iness. But it is so normal for them like cookery books, with chival document. susceptible to errors, as evidenced surprise. Failure is chaos: too much surprise for his generation, even ous. In 1990 he made the bizarre amazing, ha-ha. subjectivity in ritual occasions like critical groupings within a teased, but in the case he refers to to be seen he Today I saw the Art Crazy Nation Russell/Fabienne Audéoud transparently self-serving explana- Buchloh centre-stages this area in ideas while in the same instant Carpenter in the weird position of yBa in the 1990s, and not the tance in art that would otherwise feeble object, cannot easily be and comment on art. You can’t question: “Is it so bad?” p 34) to shove a few things together journalists and critics to drift Matthew as celebrity chef Delia by misspelt and missing words surprise. Too much openness, though they were instrumental in Whether his generation of critics decision to go back to art school, private views, for example, where revamped third or fourth here, as it happens, they are also has lost his way The book is criticized for its irrele- Show at Milton Keynes Gallery. offered a feeble whiff of alterna- tion of the book but Art Crazy his recent book. He describes those ideas are said to be defi- of tastemaker. He may be com- He talks about “us” a lot. “Us Brits”. premise of the exhibition he is be baffling to people who don’t separated from the realm of pro- paint in a style unacknowledged quickly. The problem isn’t the What sort of tradition of art writ- rightwards in the UK that you can’t Smith. Food, Art and Lifestyle are throughout Carpenter’s review. with the formal enquiry we’re creating the conditions for it all to paved the way inadvertently to do an postgraduate MA at fitting in with a crowd is important. Generation yBa culture, which I am recommended: “Anyone wanting entirely. vance to issues Carpenter consid- I immediately recognised it as, tiveness. Nation isn’t a laudatory critique of the moment after the negations cient. Carpenter may mean that plaining that artists included in “As a society, we”. “A Nation of art looking at. know much about it, but I never motion. As painters Biggs and I by fashion. You can’t have an art “The works in this show are very speed of course but the purely ing are we actually dealing with fail to notice. joined at the hip. He even misspells Richey doing, ends up looking dull. The go off. Matthew and Sarah Kent or strategically, initially it was not Goldsmiths. This represented a It fights the powers with jokes, also now apparently part of. But in to offer a social or economic ers urgent. I can’t argue with this. well, bullshit. However, I ask myself whether the brilliance and perspicacity of of conceptual art when a space Buchloh is authoritarian (or his the show are outside his mutual lovers”. “Art Crazy Nation”. go in for this. Carpenter may be bow before the inevitable. We are gallery in an ugly town. different to one another. Some are derisory nature of the object. here? Matthew is a writer, maybe