Frieze London 2012 & why the muse will not be going.

A guest blog from JAN NIEUPJUR.  Nieupjur is both an artist and philosopher. founder of Nieupjurism and Abstract depressionism. Described by Nat Tate as the most important 20th century artist and by Duchamp as the most plagiarised.

The entrance to Frieze New York. They all look the same don't they?


In the 'Creative Marriage' the muse is the 'artist'. She is imaginative and forward looking while the artist has become the 'mechanic'. Nothing more than a conduit for her creativity and the tool by which it is rendered tangible. In the case of 'BIG NAME' artists it is sadder than that; the artist has simply become the 'administrator' liaising between the creative and the mechanics producing the work within the factory like studio. The 'Name' artist is no closer to art than the hospital administrator is to surgery.

Art (or what claims to be art (blame Serota)) is now purely interested in chasing the buck and the places to chase the buck are 'Art Fairs' such as frieze!

Frieze is also the place to be seen for suits, trophy wives, trophy wives in suits, middle aged rom com actors with their Asian babes (plenty of soft porn titillation guaranteed) and 'Artists' in suits. It is nothing but a corporate seminar like any NHS seminar and the be all and end all is the embodiment of victory of profit over integrity or creativity.

For the duration of Frieze the muse will be in the studio conjuring up angel tears from her harp whilst in the tent in the Regents Park they will be plucking the feathers, one painfully by one, from the same angel's wings!

Frieze... But is it art...

As I stolled through 'Frieze' last week a chill cut me to the bone.

I came away from the thing feeling depressed and dissappointed Yet at the same time I was elated by the fact that, as I inspected the fornicating, gold plated pigs, my muse (Mona Hebuterne) had sashayed up to me, giggled, and whispered in my ear. Showing me the direction I must now take.

Some of the pieces on show were good, some were even very good but they were in a small minority. surrounding this nucleus of work by established (Old School even) Artists was a bish bash bosh of dross. an assemblage of the most tawdry, lazy and crass objects I'd ever care to shake a stick at. One enormous tin of poo. It reminded me of nothing more than the wind blown detritus in a roadside hedge. This is when Mona opened my eyes to what I was looking at; this was not Art, this was at best a collection of half resolved observations on the state of art today, a drunken 'undergraduate' discussion informed by todays obsession with 'why' rather than 'what'.

Teachers in Art schools have become preoccupied with the thought processes with little interest in the quality of the finished work. The journey is all important, the destination irrelevant. Sadly what I saw leads me to believe that most of todays 'Art Travellers' are bogged down in a scuzzy camp-site in an unknown land.

It is not the fault of the artists. The blame must be equally shared between the cynical Art establishment and those that teach students to believe the hype. A fraction of Art school graduates have got what it takes to achieve even a mediocre greatness and they are being churned out lacking even the basic skills that might allow them to work in the commercial sector.

Is it a coincidence that a great number of young british Artists live and work in Hackney? their work is certainly hackneyed!

At Frieze one of the works on show was a large piece of old rope snaking accross the floor... Yes, they wanted money for it!