Regan Tamanui | |
|---|---|
| Born | |
| Known for | Painting |
| Movement | Stuckism |
Regan Tamanui is an artist based in Melbourne, Australia. In October 2000, he founded the Melbourne Stuckists, the fourth Stuckist of the original Stuckist groups and the first outside the United Kingdom. He has also painted prolifically as a street artist under the tag name HA-HA.
In October 2000, Regan Tamanui, a jazz, ska and skank fan, discovered the London Stuckist group whilst surfing the internet. He sent an email and then founded the Melbourne Stuckists. [1] He saw "The main (point) that really stood out was the ability to wake up and paint pictures." [2] This was the fourth Stuckist group to be started, and the first one outside the UK, thus launching an international movement that by 2006 counted 127 groups in 32 countries. On 27 October 2000 he staged the first Stuckist show outside the UK, when he mounted the Real Turner Prize Show at the Dead End Gallery in his home in Reno Road, Sandringham, concurrent with three shows of the same title (two in England and one in Germany) in protest against the Tate Gallery's Turner Prize. [3]
Besides Tamanui, the other initial members of the Melbourne group were Justin Grub, Ben Blanchette, Malcome Mmackie and Dave Freeman Rose. A subsequent line-up was Basil Kouvelis, Justin Grubb, Ben Frost, Nigel Stein, Daniel Gorzadek, Stephen Sperling and Dennis Roper. Tamanui expressed his and the group's artistic philosophy:
There are some people who shit in a tin. Is that really art? [2]
In May 2001, Tamanui, Stein, Grubb and Kouvelis were represented with 24 international groups in the London show Vote Stuckist, so named because Stuckist co-founder, Charles Thomson, was standing as a candidate in the 2001 United Kingdom general election against the then-Culture Secretary, Chris Smith.
In November 2001, the Melbourne Stuckists staged a show Houdini to Hofmann at the Chiara Goya Gallery, which included some UK Stuckist work for the first time.
Kaye Blum made a short documentary on the group, Art Gets Unstuck. The film is structured around the artists reading lines from the Stuckists Manifesto written by Charles Thomson and Billy Childish. It was first shown at the Jaffas Down the Aisle film festival in Melbourne in October 2001, then in 2002 at the International Film Festival of Fine Art in Hungary and the Asolo Arts Film Festival in Italy, where it was nominated for best student short.
In July 2002, Tamanui, along with other Australian Stuckists was shown at The First Stuckist International, the inaugural show of the Stuckism International Gallery, Shoreditch, London. The show also included Godfrey Blow who had followed Tamanui's lead and founded a Perth Stuckists group.
In October 2002, Tamanui opened the Stuckism International Centre Australia, with an ongoing exhibition of work, as well as the first international Stuckist show in Australia, Stuck Down South, at the FAD Gallery. This included founding Stuckists, Thomson, Ella Guru and Sexton Ming. (Like the London gallery it has now ceased operating.)
In March 2003, Tamanui was exhibited in Stuck in Wednesbury, the Stuckists' first show in a public gallery, held in Wednesbury Museum and Art Gallery, England.
Since 2004, Tamanui has been represented by Criterion Gallery in Hobart. He has made a successful transition to the commercial gallery arena, with art collectors increasingly interested in his street inspired stencilling. Tamanui's work can be found in the collection of BHP, the State Library Victoria, the City of Melbourne, Artbank, and the National Gallery of Australia, who purchased a number of works for their permanent collection. [4]
Tamanui takes his lead from Picasso and American pop artist Shag. His work is "large, vibrantly colored, pop-art style paintings", often showing several figures interacting. [2] Since 2001 he has exhibited his work in both a solo and group capacity in Hobart, Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, New Zealand, United States and London.
The Australian presence (Tamanui's group) was first noted in an article on the Stuckists in the UK Observer Sunday newspaper in May 2000. [5]
The participation of the Australian Stuckists in the London Vote Stuckist show in 2001 occasioned a double page spread in the leading Melbourne paper The Age . [2] Tamanui's initiative in speaking out provoked a similar range of reactions to the ones the UK group had received in Britain. Melbourne painter David Larwill said, "It's the best thing I've heard in ages." Max Delaney, director of public gallery 200 Gertrude Street, accused the Melbourne group of "revisionism" and "publicity and marketing". Su Baker, head of the School of Art, Victorian College of the Arts, wrote it off as "a cheap shot" (the same accusation which Sir Nicholas Serota had levelled at Thomson in London. [6] Melbourne curator, Juliana Engberg, said, "They are an aberrant version of conceptualism by default, using the same devices to promote something that's very conservative." [2]
Four years later, in April 2005 The Age ran a reprise of Stuckism and observed:
The Stuckists are a radical pro-painting group and are anti-conceptual art. The movement was started by Charles Thomson and Billy Childish (who has since left) in the United Kingdom in 1999 with eleven other artists and is now an international movement. They are noted for their "Agitprop" against the Turner Prize and Britart.
| Main articles | |
|---|---|
| Co-founders | |
| Initial group | |
| Artists in Europe |
|
| Artists in UK | |
| Artists in US | |
| Artists elsewhere |
|
| Artworks | |
| Shows | |
| Galleries | |
| Related groups | |
| Stuckism opposed by | |
| Stuckism opposed to | |
| Wikimedia | |
Artists' names in italics indicate artists no longer in the movement (as of November 2011) | |
| Authority control databases: Artists |
|---|
Stuckism is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting as opposed to conceptual art. By May 2017 the initial group of 13 British artists had expanded to 236 groups in 52 countries.
Remodernism is an artistic and philosophical movement aimed at reviving aspects of modernism, particularly in its early form, in a manner that both follows after and contrasts against postmodernism. The movement was initiated in 2000 by stuckists Billy Childish and Charles Thomson, with a manifesto, Remodernism in an attempt to introduce a period of new "spirituality" into art, culture and society to replace postmodernism, which they said was cynical and spiritually bankrupt. In 2002, a remodernism art show in Albuquerque was accompanied by an essay from University of California, Berkeley art professor, Kevin Radley, who said there was a renewal of artists working without the limitation of irony and cynicism, and that there was a renewal of the sense of beauty. Adherents of remodernism advocate it as a forward and radical, not reactionary, impetus.
The Hon. Sir Nicholas Andrew Serota is a British art historian and curator.
Charles Thomson is an English artist, poet and photographer. In the early 1980s he was a member of The Medway Poets. In 1999 he named and co-founded the Stuckists art movement with Billy Childish. He has curated Stuckist shows, organised demonstrations against the Turner Prize, run an art gallery, stood for parliament and reported Charles Saatchi to the OFT. He is frequently quoted in the media as an opponent of conceptual art. He was briefly married to artist Stella Vine.
Joe Machine is an English artist, poet and writer. He is a founding member of the Stuckists art group.
Paul Arthur Harvey is a British musician and Stuckist artist, whose work was used to promote the Stuckists' 2004 show at the Liverpool Biennial. His paintings draw on pop art and the work of Alphonse Mucha, and often depict celebrities, including Madonna.
Jesse Beau Richards is a painter, filmmaker and photographer from New Haven, Connecticut and was affiliated with the international movement Stuckism. He has been described as "one of the most provocative names in American underground culture," and "the father of remodernist cinema."
The Stuckists Punk Victorian was the first national gallery exhibition of Stuckist art. It was held at the Walker Art Gallery and Lady Lever Art Gallery in Liverpool from 18 September 2004 to 20 February 2005 and was part of the 2004 Liverpool Biennial.
John Bourne is a British artist and painter, living and working in Wales, and a member of the Stuckists art movement. He founded the Wrexham Stuckists group in 2001 and has been exhibited in the group's shows since then, including The Stuckists Punk Victorian. He has also taken part in Stuckist demonstrations against the Turner Prize. The subject matter for his paintings, which are done in a simplified style, comes from his memories.
Elsa Dax is a French painter and a member of the Stuckists art movement. Major themes in her work are myth, legend and fairytale.
Stuckism is an art movement that began in London, England, in 1999. In 2000, Melbourne artist Regan Tamanui started the first international branch of the movement. As of 2010, there are seven Australian Stuckist groups, who have held shows—sometimes concurrently with UK activities—received coverage in the Australian press and on TV, and also been represented in UK shows. The Stuckists take a strong pro-painting and anti-conceptual art stance, and were co-founded by Charles Thomson and Billy Childish.
Stuckist demonstrations since 2000 have been a key part of the Stuckist art group's activities and have succeeded in giving them a high-profile both in Britain and abroad. Their primary agenda is the promotion of figurative painting and opposition to conceptual art.
Stuckist photographers develop the values of the Stuckism art painting movement into film and photography. Some of them are in a group called the Stuckist Photographers.
Go West is the title of the first exhibition by Stuckist artists in a commercial London West End gallery. It was staged in Spectrum London gallery in October 2006. The show attracted media interest for its location, for the use of a painting satirising Sir Nicholas Serota, Director of the Tate gallery, and for two paintings of a stripper by Charles Thomson based on his former wife, artist Stella Vine.
Stephen Purbeck Howarth, known as S.P., is a poet, Stuckist artist and actor. He was expelled from college for his paintings. He has demonstrated against the Turner prize at the Tate gallery.
Abby Jackson is a British artist, Stuckist painter, writer and art activist.
Sir Nicholas Serota Makes an Acquisitions Decision is one of the paintings that was made as a part of the Stuckism art movement, and is recognized as a "signature piece" for the movement, It was painted by the Stuckism co-founder Charles Thomson in 2000, and has been exhibited in a number of shows since, as well as being featured on placards during Stuckist demonstrations against the Turner Prize.
The Stuckism International Gallery was the gallery of the Stuckist art movement. It was open from 2002 to 2005 in Shoreditch, and was run by Charles Thomson, the co-founder of Stuckism. It was launched by a procession carrying a coffin marked "The death of conceptual art" to the neighbouring White Cube gallery.
