Hot dog

Charles Thomson, co-founder of the Stuckists, has written to me to complain about my comments on the Dickinson dog case, pointing out that I have misrepresented his movement.

"Stuckism International art movement" he writes, "means there are 164 Stuckist groups in 40 countries [more here]." So what? There are raving Christian Fundamentalists all over the world too, but that doesn't make them a credible force.

He goes on:
"I'm sorry you don't approve of people having a point of view which doesn't accord with the establishment. However, you have underestimated our founding beef, which is not merely with the British art establishment, but with a philosophy of art which has global dominance, of which the Turner Prize is merely a parochial manifestation."

I'll leave the Establishment bit aside for a moment, but in what way does a collage of the Turkish Prime Minister depicted as a dog help the global Stuckist art cause except as a publicity stunt? And what is this noxious "global dominance" about which they are so paranoid? I too think a lot of contemporary art is rubbish, but a lot of it isn't. In any event, to suggest it's some kind of global conspiracy is hysterical claptrap.

"Michael Dickinson is not currently in jail," Mr Thomson informs me. I offer my apologies for suggesting he was.

"You seem to think it's absurd," he continues, "that this could concern the [British] Prime Minister in the least. The Times thought, 'The case could greatly embarrass Turkey and Britain, for it raises questions about Turkey’s human rights record as it seeks EU membership'."

Somehow I hardly think Mr Dickinson's collage can claim credit for exposing Turkey's human rights record. I don't believe he even intended it to do so. In any event, there are more effective ways to expose Turkish unsuitability for membership of the EU than depicting Tayyip Erdogan as Bush's poodle.

Finally, do the Stuckists ever have anything positive to say about anything, or does their brand of victimology preclude them from everything but whingeing? But then I guess they've become something of a national treasure. And you don't get more Establishment than that.