cross-currents in culture number 15 • summer 2002 • free page 2 • variant • volume 2 number 15 • Summer 2002 Variant volume 2 Number 15, Summer 2002 ISSN 0954-8815 Variant is a magazine of cross-currents in cul- ture: critical thinking, imaginative ideas, inde- contents pendent media and artistic interventions. Variant is a Society based organisation and Letters 3 functions with the assistance of subscriptions and advertising. We welcome contributions in the form of news, reviews, articles, interviews, polemical A Lovely Curiousity, Raymond Roussel 5 pieces and artists’ pages. Guidelines for writ- William Clark ers are available on request. Opinions expressed in Variant are those of the writers and not necessarily those of the Asian Alternative Space 10 editors or Variant. All material is copyright (unless stated otherwise) the authors or Andrew Lam Variant. Editorial & Advertising Address: 1a Shamrock Street, Glasgow G4 9JZ Gareth Williams 13 Editors: William Clark & Leigh French Ed Baxter Advertising & Distribution: Paula Larkin Design: Kevin Hobbs Cover: Felix Vallotton's 1896 portraits of Dodgy Analogy 14 Remy de Gourmont, Paul Adam, Jean Moreas, John Barker Leon Bloy, Andre Gide, Laurent Tailhade, Pierre Quillard, Rachilde, Alfred Vallette, Felix Feneon, Camille Mauclair, Jules Laforgue, Arthur Rimbaud, Robert de Bloody Hell 17 Montesquiou, Stuart Merrill, Pierre Louys, An American Nurse Jehan Rictus, Jean Lorrain, The Comte de Lautremont, Paul Verlaine, Stephane Mallarme, Tales of the Great Unwashed 18 Maurice Barres, Emile Verhaeren. Ian Brotherhood t/f +44 (0)141 333 9522 email [email protected] Printers: Scottish County Press Muslims and the West after September 11 20 Subscriptions Individuals can receive a three Pervez Hoodbhoy issue (one year) subscription to Variant for: UK £5.00, EC £7.00, Elsewhere £10.00 Institutions: UK & EC £10.00, Elsewhere £15.00 Desire & a kind of Playfulness 22 Discussion Artists Initiatives in Moscow 24 Gillian McIver Collective Cultural Action 26 Critical Art Ensemble Zine & Comic reviews 28 Mark Pawson The march 30 The story of the historic Scottish hunger march Harry McShane Variant issues 1–14 are also available free on our website: http://www.variant.org.uk variant • volume 2 number 15 • Summer 2002 • page 3 Letters ...or how the SAC spends your taxes Dear Sir and Madam, and impartially, with reference to one criterion only: solicitors don’t explain. To use this and terms We act for the Scottish Arts Council. artistic merit. [emphasis added] such as ‘reckless’ and ‘extreme language’ of criti- cism is to reveal a paranoid and secretive organi- Our client has sought our legal advice in relation to In the meantime, please let us have your assurance that no re-occurrence of these recent defamations and sation unwilling to embrace any form of public correspondence which has passed between your accountability. Michael Russell MSP told us: company and our client following the decision of the offensive e-mails will take place. appeals panel of the Scottish Arts Council not to uphold This letter is written entirely without prejudice to and “I have now written to the SAC just saying that I am your company's appeal against refusal of an application under reservation of our client's whole rights and pleas concerned by the lack of funding, the way the decision for a grant from the Scottish Arts Council. in law and may not be founded upon in any was reached and by the "arrogant and irresponsible" use of public money on threatening legal action, still On our client's behalf, we write to inform you that proceedings. less bringing it forward.” many of the remarks contained in your e-mail of 14 Faithfully To our knowledge he received no reply. January 2002 which was circulated to a third party are Burness We are still disgusted and expressed this to defamatory both of the Scottish Arts Council and of its Gavin Wallace (SAC Literature) because we could officer, Sue Pirnie. not believe that he agreed with the SAC’s ‘report’ On behalf of the Scottish Arts Council, we reserve all William ‘Reckless & Extreme’ Clark on Variant 13 (which contained the work of James legal rights available to it to take legal action against responds: Kelman, Peter Kravitz and Harold Pinter and was your company arising out of this defamation. We also Yeah mine too...Anyone who has applied to the universally praised) that: on behalf of the Council request that you desist from SAC knows that this letter twice makes the false “The consensus of feedback on the quality of Variant making further such defamatory remarks to third assertion that the SAC make judgements on the has been that it has been [sic]... that it has declined... parties. sole basis of ‘artistic merit’. Even the director of The content is often very biased or inaccurate... we The Scottish Arts Council has a duty to draw the the SAC knows that’s a lie, and this raises quite cannot agree that you meet your stated objectives as a attention of Sue Pirnie to your e-mail. She may well serious questions. What utter incompetent gave broadly accessible magazine; the language, editorial seek legal advice for herself in relation to the remarks these false assurances to the SAC’s solicitors? stance and quality mitigate against this” which you have made about her. Why was a presumably respectable law firm led This report, little more than condemnation, was We would point out that our client has a public duty to into putting this into writing and then encouraged written by one person, Sue Pirnie before issue 13 make decisions concerning the allocation of limited to threaten Variant with legal action while we had been distributed or anyone could have actual- financial resources for the promotion of the arts in were trying to use the SAC’s insane appeals proc- ly read it. When we asked about this we got this Scotland. The Scottish Arts Council, through its ess. What does this say for the SAC’s regard for gibberish back: their own and their Solicitor’s professional repu- committees, seeks to exercise this function at all times “...the comments in it; whether on content, tation? in a fair and objective manner and its policy is that all communication or any other points, ‘summarise When this lie is first made it is said to be the applications be considered with reference to one feedback from, and received by, SAC’. It would therefore basis of SAC’s fairness and objectivity in relation criterion only: artistic merit.[emphasis added] be inaccurate of you to attribute the points to any to ALL applications. This is an astonishing The Council has also put in place an appeals system for specific issue or timeframe.” attempt to deceive everyone. One possibility is applicants whose initial application has been The report is a poisonous piece of writing by that the solicitors just assumed that’s what an unsuccessful. Again the Scottish Arts Council seeks someone without the ability to make an informed Arts Council does—but it is exactly because they ensure that these appeals be conducted in a fair and assessment, to uphold Sue Pirnie’s judgement of have dispensed with this criterion that the SAC’s objective manner. Such is our client's concern to James Kelman’s work is madness. role has become intrinsically hypocritical and maintain this that the procedures which are employed Wallace didn’t actually turn up to the meeting counter-productive. are kept under constant review. which refused to fund us, but Pirnie did and was When the lie is repeated it is as the basis of practically the only person there. We have letters Although your e-mail of 14 January contains the SAC’s ability to give credible assurances: so it from Wallace saying we were the ‘precedent’ for defamatory remarks both of the Scottish Arts Council is clear proof that those running the SAC give this fund and that we would be funded, but then and of Sue Pirnie, it occurs to our client that the overall false assurances; and we have this courtesy of were told we were nothing to do with it and we tone of the e-mail and the reckless and extreme their solicitors, who will no doubt be writing to weren’t funded because of ‘the competition’, language used in it reflect badly on your own them asking why they were misled. which turned out to be non-existent. The minutes organisation, undermining its professionalism and There are several other basic factual inaccura- of the meeting inform us that they found the mag- damaging its reputation. Our clients wonder whether cies in this letter. For example, the SAC did not azine ‘unintelligible’, yet they also deliberately the board of your company is aware of the contents of allow us to actually have an appeal: they had a ignored the outside opinion they sought because your e-mail and approves of them. We have also been secret meeting and decided not to allow this. We it was impartially in favour of us. informed that an e-mail was received by one of our then informed them that as a result(according to For the SAC we will be ‘self-sufficient’ if we do client's officers from you Mr Clark on 29 January which their procedure) we would contact the Scottish not receive their funding, but when they withdrew started with the phrase "I won't go into the utter Parliamentary Ombudsman. We did, but we can- it they informed other bodies that we were ‘finan- loathing and disgust that I feel in writing to you nor not really represent our case because the SAC cially unviable’: that was two issues ago.