The
Independent 16-01-2016
David
Lister
The
man who conned the world (or how I exposed David Bowie's fake artist)
(see
below)
William
Boyd
I
showed the art world is scared to admit to a lack of knowledge
The
problem with modern art/architecture is that its unintelligibility
frequently generates a dismal chasm that very few choose to admit to
facing. Rather than expressing any cynical questioning, or presenting
a critical opinion on what is before them, folk make 'appropriate'
sounds, and 'knowing' and 'agreeably clever' statements to conceal
the reality of their dismay, their knowing nothing but silent disgust
and astonishment at the bizarre things presented to them. The
alternative is for them to just shut up, to keep to themselves in
order to conceal their true thoughts, so as to prevent any potential
perception of 'igonrance' by the pretending masses that glean
enthusiasm from each other's sheltered incomprehension.
William Boyd
The
marvellous William Boyd 'Nat Tate' hoax highlights just this
circumstance. It is a serious matter because some works like those of
Gehry in architecture, and Hadid and others too, get promoted
uncritically as being the works of remarkable genius, and are
sustained/promoted as such, purely, it seems, on the ground of
timidity – being scared to admit to being totally confused with the
seemingly chaotic, ad hoc 'shambles' of what appears to be a set of
sad, expensive jokes being put to the world as 'great art' –
architecture, complete with some esoteric, and otherwise ordinary
'narratives.' Crumpled brown paper bags come to mind here.
John Ruskin
Ruskin knew of this problem and wrote about it with a surprising humour and sarcasm that writers are seldom prepared to entertain in these times: see - http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2015/09/building-fashions-on-institutions-media.html
Instead
of harsh critiques, intellectual assessments are made to promulgate
these skewed forms as brilliant, creative delights: see -
http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/on-intellectuals-cliques-of-time-and.html
'the new and handsome building, erected by the great Mr. Blank'
Few today are game to stand up to the juggernaut of hopeful, fashionable opinion that seeks to highlight exotic, bespoke, indulgent preferences for their own personal benefit. Rarely does anyone bravely declare these apparent rash assemblages as being somewhat like 'meaningless, random rubbish.' Rather, we see acolytes cringing silently behind fancy words of fabricated praise that conceal great voids of understanding and holes in ordinary, honest experience, all to be seen as 'intelligently arty' and 'sophisticated,' while mocking those who do not behave likewise. There is a crowd mania here that drives silliness on blindly along the road to circular oblivion.
The book release
The Nat
Tate affair was a brilliant strategy, a hoax that exposed the very
worst of this 'advant-garde' approach to what can perhaps be seen as
slip-slop scrappy works described as being otherwise, things that are usually starkly different,
over-hyped and over-priced.
The
question is: how can this terrible lie ever be changed? How can
anything become a serious search for meaning today when such
outrageous frivolities are perpetuated by the momentous inertia of
the media to things it does not choose to consider; to questions and
doubts about art and architecture? 'Man eats dog' is the preferred
news of the day. Gosh, Boyd was able to sell one of his paintings
through Sothebys as a 'Nat Tate work'!
114," by Nat Tate
We need
more Boyds to expose the cheating in art, the presentation of works
that are rude hoaxes themselves, deformities brashly and boldly
presented as 'great art,' complete with their own pompous rationales
when they are really much less – perhaps simple, deceptive trash:
humbug, completely lacking in respect for anything but themselves and
their appearances. We should seriously consider the concept of
mottainai – see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mottainai
We need
to search out the true roots of meaning in experience if we are to
gain anything from art beyond entertainment or embarrassment. Sadly
it is not currently fashionable to be serious about ordinary life,
even though there is a wealth of understanding in things traditional.
Art has, so it seems, to be unique to 'ME' so that 'I' can display
'MY' brilliance to the world, for it to fawn over 'ME' heroically, to
drool on 'MY' clever self with explosively persuasive, expensively
wondrous words that only encourage others to do likewise. We need
much better than this 'selfie' world of 'ME' and 'MY' importance; this pretence: see
-
http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2015/11/architectural-language-problem-of-hype.html
David Bowie
It took
the death of David Bowie to raise the Nat Tate story once more. It
needs to be told, and told again, lest we forget.
See also:
see blogs
that highlight this problem:
"Have a look at this one!"
THE
ARTICLE
The
man who conned the world (or how I exposed David Bowie’s fake
artist)
It
couldn’t happen in the internet age, but back in 1998 the pop star
helped to create a fictitious Abstract Expressionist and
convince the art world he was real – until our Arts Editor, David
Lister, unmasked the deception
| 15
January 2016 17:45
It was
one of the smartest tricks ever played on the worlds of art,
literature and the media. It even involved the late David Bowie in
one of his most mischievous moments.
Among the
many memories that the superstar’s death brought back for me was of
one sultry evening in New York in 1998. Bowie, with his wife Iman at
his side, hosted a reception in the studio of American artist Jeff
Koons on the corner of Broadway and East Houston Street for the
launch of the latest book by bestselling British writer William Boyd.
The book told the life story of American Abstract Expressionist
artist Nat Tate, who suffered from depression, destroyed 99 per cent
of his work, and tragically ended his life by jumping from the Staten
Island ferry.
Among
guests at the launch were artists Frank Stella and Julian Schnabel,
the hip New York novelist Jay McInerney, fellow writers Paul Auster
and Siri Hustvedt, dealers, collectors, press and TV, and assorted
hangers-on.
Bowie
read from the page where Boyd heart-rendingly detailed Tate’s death
leap at the age of 31. His body was never found and very little of
his work survives. The gathering stopped sipping the whisky provided
by the event’s sponsors for a few moments (Bowie at the time only
drank water and sent an assistant to get some). The crowd took their
eyes off Koons’s colourful, kitsch sculptures of kittens, and
listened attentively, then resumed drinking, networking and seeing
who could impress most with opinions about Nat Tate’s life and
work.
It was a
glittering evening, probably the major event in that year’s
cultural calendar, and beneath the glitz a poignant tribute to one of
the 20th century’s pioneering artists. More parochially, it was
also the evening that was to give me the biggest scoop of my
journalistic career. For, as I revealed on the front page of The
Independent a few days later in an exclusive that was to go round the
world, Nat Tate never existed.
The book,
the artist, the party and the involvement of Bowie, who was certainly
in on it, were all part of an elaborate, star-studded hoax. The book
Nat Tate: An American Artist 1928-1960 was the first to be released
under the imprint of Bowie’s new publishing venture, called 21. The
project would certainly have appealed to his love of fantasy, acting
a role, creating a persona, and indulging in sheer mischief.
I went to
New York to cover the event and freely admit that as I travelled
there on the plane I saw no reason to doubt the existence of Nat
Tate. I, like all the rest, began to convince myself that I must have
seen some of his haunting Abstract Expressionist works in one of our
major galleries.
But once
in New York, I began to have doubts. It was all very odd. This
clearly was a major event. The Sunday Telegraph was running an
extract from the book that weekend and The Observer was writing a
report of the launch. Yet art lovers seemed only to have a passing
acquaintance with the brief, sad history of Nat Tate, depressive
genius, lover of Peggy Guggenheim, friend of Braque and Picasso.
Once in
my New York hotel, I overheard some enigmatic conversations about
Tate among the launch’s organisers and then reread Boyd’s short
book. I decided to check out some of the detail in it. I went to
inquire about Tate’s life at Alice Singer’s 57th Street gallery
where Boyd wrote that he had first seen one of Tate’s drawings.
57th Street indeed existed. Alice Singer’s gallery did not. Nor did
any of the other galleries referred to in the book.
I did a
lot of walking in what was a mini-heatwave and found that address
after address just wasn’t there. I then questioned some of those
close to the project and the alarmed looks all but signed off the
story for me. I also began to wonder about the name Nat Tate. How
conveniently similar it was to one, if not two, famous London art
galleries. It was all a brilliant ruse, more than helped by expert
endorsements. Picasso’s biographer, John Richardson, was clearly
one of the very few in on the secret, as was Gore Vidal, who
described the book on the jacket as “a moving account of an artist
too well understood by his time”.
Bowie
himself very nearly went too far in writing on the jacket that
“William Boyd’s description of Tate’s working procedure is so
vivid that it convinces me that the small oil I picked up on Prince
Street, New York, in the late Sixties must indeed be one of the lost
Third Panel Triptychs. The great sadness of this quiet and moving
monograph is that the artist’s most profound dread – that God
will make you an artist but only a mediocre artist – did not in
retrospect apply to Nat Tate.”
Neither
Jeff Koons, who hosted the launch (held not insignificantly on the
eve of April Fool’s Day), nor his fellow New York artists present
were aware of the truth, or of the fact that at least one of the
paintings in the book ascribed to Tate was by William Boyd himself.
Photographs ostensibly of Tate were pictures taken by Boyd in various
locations in the city.
So what
did it all prove? Aside from the fun aspect, and the cleverness of
Boyd’s use of and allusions to so many aspects of 20th century art,
it showed, as his imaginative and brilliantly executed project
probably intended, that the art world, perhaps the whole cultural
world, is scared ever to admit to a lack of knowledge, scared ever to
use the words: “I’ve never heard of him.” How quickly the great
and the good of that world convinced themselves of Nat Tate’s
existence. That’s something we could still all do well to ruminate
on.
As I
wrote at the time, “The critics, artists and gallery owners who
have been taken in by one of the best literary scams in years must be
wishing they could disappear as effectively as Nat Tate – and, like
him, resurface with their reputations dramatically enhanced.”
William
Boyd’s objective in writing the book was an intriguing and
sophisticated one. Looking back, he has said: “My aim was, first of
all, to prove how powerful and credible a pure fiction could be and,
at the same time, to try to create a kind of modern fable about the
art world. In 1998 we were at the height of the Young British
Artists’ delirium. The air was full of Hirst and Emin, Lucas, Hume,
Chapman, Harvey, Ofili, Quinn and Turk. My own feeling, was that some
of these artists – who were never out of the media and who were
achieving record prices for their artworks – were, to put it
bluntly, not very good.
“However,
there was a kind of feeding frenzy going on, an art-driven South Sea
Bubble or Tulip Fever, and the story of Nat Tate in this context was
meant to be exemplary. What is it like to be a very average artist
who achieves great fame and wealth? What is it like when, as David
Bowie stated in his blurb to the biography, God has chosen to make
you an artist but only a mediocre one? This is Nat’s unhappy fate
and it’s only when he is confronted with true artistic genius (in
the shape of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque) that he finds the
knowledge of his own single inadequacy too much to bear. He collects
as much of his work as he can find and burns it. A few days later, in
a fit of despair, he jumps off the Staten Island ferry as it crosses
the Hudson River and drowns.”
And yes,
the parable or satire was certainly well-timed. And the saga seemed
to run and run. In 2011 a drawing signed by Nat Tate sold at
Sotheby’s. It was, of course, by William Boyd.
And still
the oddities surrounding the saga continue. For the first time
yesterday I looked at the Wikipedia entry for Nat Tate and found that
my part in it was duly recorded, but so was the conclusion apparently
drawn by Newsweek magazine in New York that I too did not and do not
exist. I’ll be sure to avoid the Staten Island ferry.
Journalistically,
the story certainly made waves, being recycled at the time in papers
as far away as the Andes. Not everyone thought it funny. William Boyd
has since said that he was far from happy, as there was a UK launch
of the book the following week in London, and The Independent’s
scoop had rather changed the tone of it.
I suspect
that David Bowie was rather more amused. Indeed, at the New York
launch, I kept my eyes on him during the reading, and if I needed any
confirmation that my story was correct, it was his constant smile and
twinkle in his eye, even while reading aloud about Tate’s tragic
end. Nat Tate could not have had a more illustrious, nor more
appropriate, champion.
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