The Romantic Anonymous Fellowship

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Logo of The Romantic Anonymous Fellowship

The Romantic Anonymous Fellowship was founded by the Stuckist painter Odysseus Yakoumakis on September 2004, as the first, and currently the only, Greek group of Stuckism International. It has an international membership.

Stuckism international art movement

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.

Odysseus Yakoumakis Greek painter

Odysseus Yakoumakis is a Stuckist artist, painter and illustrator, based in Athens, Greece. He is the founder of the first Greek Stuckist group, The Romantic Anonymous Fellowship, and organiser of the first international Stuckist group show in Greece, Under the Cover of Romantic Anonymity. He was a scheduled speaker at the first Stuckist international symposium, The Triumph of Stuckism, in England. He practises martial arts and he is currently studying traditional engraving.

Contents

History

Odysseus Yakoumakis discovered Stuckism in July, 2004, while surfing the net, and saw in it an antidote to what he deems "the ailments of the contemporary Greek 'artscape'". [1] He contacted Charles Thomson, the London founder of Stuckism, and a few days later founded The Romantic Anonymous Fellowship. He conceived this as a "Greek version of Stuckism, an antidote to contemporary Greek art's provincialism, sectarianism and servile importation of post-modernism". He developed the concept of "Romantic Stuckism", that is of "Stuckism with a good injection of Eleatic and Platonic philosophy, oriented rather towards encouraging each artist to pursue his/her genuinely personal artistic vision rather, than towards pointless polemics against the reactionary official art-establishment". He published the first two Romantic Stuckist theoretical texts on the Fellowship's website.

Charles Thomson (artist) British artist

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.

Parochialism is the state of mind, whereby one focuses on small sections of an issue rather than considering its wider context. More generally, it consists of being narrow in scope. In that respect, it is a synonym of "provincialism". It may, particularly when used pejoratively, be contrasted to universalism. The term insularity may be similarly used.

Sectarianism form of bigotry, discrimination, or hatred

Sectarianism is a form of bigotry, discrimination, or hatred arising from attaching relations of inferiority and superiority to differences between subdivisions within a group. Common examples are denominations of a religion, ethnic identity, class, or region for citizens of a state and factions of a political movement.

At that stage he was the Fellowship's only fellow and, as far as he knew, the only artist in Greece aware of the Stuckist movement. He contacted other fine artists in Athens, but described the reactions he got as "ranging from a tepid 'academic curiosity' to a sheer lack of interest or even, occasionally, to a politely concealed hostility." He was however contacted by artists from overseas and accepted them into the Fellowship. The first to apply was Ian J. Burkett, a painter living in London and founder of the Ealing Stuckists group. Shortly after, followed the painter and etcher Ilania Abileah from Canada, and the painter and etcher Anthe (who is of Greek descent) from the US.

Under the Cover of Romantic Anonymity

Yakoumakis determined that Stuckism should, nevertheless, be brought "in the flesh" before the eyes of the Greek fine arts community, and organised the first Stuckist event in Greece, titled Under the Cover of Romantic Anonymity, announced for May 14 of 2010 at the Ash-In-Art Gallery, Athens, Greece.

In parallel with the show, the new book by Odysseus Yakoumakis will be featured, titled "Leaflets from the Wilderness (a case study about the artscape in nouveau-Greece and many other lands)" (Ash-In-Art Publications).

Stuckist artists taking part include:

Guest artists participating are:

Footnotes

  1. ↑ This issue is taken up in Yakoumis' article, "The Academic Provincialism of contemporary Greek Art and its proposed Stuckist remedy", to be presented by him at the first Stuckist international symposium The Triumph of Stuckism in Liverpool, England

See also

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References

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