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Thesis Art has always been a source of controversy. The great artist sees himself as the rival of God, a co-worker in the field of creativity. Of necessity he regards himself as above the law, standing outside the conventional standards of behaviour. The true artist is willing to sacrifice everything, his health and sanity, the approval of others, even life itself, in the eternal struggle to move a complacent public with the force and clarity of his abiding vision. The Jackist Manifesto
Crime On show at an art gallery in Manchester is a "sculpture" entitled Stolen, so called because all the material used in its construction has been nicked. Artist Edward Barton, 34, sent a shoplifter round local supermarkets to bring back cans of lager, nappies, washing powder and toys, all of which he placed in a cage to form his sculpture. Said Steve Murphy, chairman of the city's police authority, "Only lunatics would call it art. This person is openly promoting crime. It would make the artist an accessory to crime and I am sure the police will be most interested in talking to him."
Body Count (1) Richard Ramirez, who was known as the Night Stalker, killed 19 people and terrorised suburban Los Angeles in a rampage that lasted for over a year... Arnfinn Nesset, Scandinavia's most prolific mass murderer, between 1977 and 1980 killed at least 25 patients while working as manager of the Orkdal Valley Nursing Home... Cannibal killer Andrei Chikatilo, who was executed in the Ukraine in 1994, was known as the Rostoff Ripper and killed 53 people...
Cannibals There was a public outcry yesterday over a children's art show portraying British troops as cannibals. Included in the school display are paintings by 14-year-olds of squaddies eating Argentinian prisoners during the Falklands War. The exhibition, entitled Falklands Propaganda, is at a school in Kirton-in-Lindsey, South Humberside - a mile from barracks where veterans of the 1982 conflict still serve. Teachers were criticised for encouraging their pupils to paint the pictures. Local Tory MP John Townend said: "It's a slur on the memory of those who lost their lives. Somebody must have put these ideas in the children's heads." War veteran Dennis Yorke, of the Royal British Legion, said: "It's ironic the display is called Propaganda because that's what these children's minds have been filled with." Headmaster David Moulson denied the show was anti-British. He said: "It was designed to show the false information about atrocities that was fed out during the war."
Chamber of Horrors A play labelled the most disgusting ever staged in Britain is costing more than £22,000 in taxpayers' and charity money. Blasted by 23 year old Sarah Kane shows under-age sex with a retarded schoolgirl, male rape, a baby's eyes being pulled out and eaten, and even defecation on stage. On its opening night at London's Royal Court Theatre many members of the audience walked out, while critics called it a "sea of filth," a "chamber of horrors," and Britain's most disgusting production. The Arts Council, who are helping fund the play, said: "We do not impose censorship."
Obscene (1) The figure of a semi-naked man presses against a giant beer barrel and performs a lewd sex act. Most ordinary folk would regard such a display as pornographic. But for those with money to spare in recession-hit Britain, this is ART. It is just one of many questionable exhibits to be found in some of London's posh galleries. A spokesman for Scotland Yard's Obscene Publications Squad said that if similar material were to appear in a newspaper or magazine it might result in criminal prosecution. Gallery exhibitions however are exempt from the Indecent Displays (Control) Act of 1981. The barrel-man is on display at the prestigious Anthony d'Offay gallery, just off the capital's busy Oxford Street. Also on show are two high priced paintings of artist Jeff Koons making love to his wife, Italian porn star La Cicciolina. Rebecca Hossack is showing lurid watercolours by Masami Teraoka in the basement of St James' Church in Piccadilly. Two paintings (£11,579 plus VAT) show a woman being ravished by an octopus as condoms float by. At the Hamilton Gallery in Mayfair a photograph of a huge penis by Robert Mapplethorpe costs £4,250 plus VAT. Another Hamilton exhibit, by Joel-Peter Witkin, was entitled Testicle Stretch with the Possibility of Crushed Face 1982. At only £3,875 plus VAT it sounds like a bargain.
Dead Animals (1) The RSPCA took to court a student who chopped off a live mouse's head in the name of art. Onlookers screamed in horror as 22 year old Leonardo Murgo, an art student at Sydney University, killed the white mouse with a meat cleaver, shouting, "Nothing lives for ever." He was reported by an outraged witness and charged with cruelty. Murgo was put on a 12-month good behaviour bond and ordered to pay $150 court costs.
Snuff Alan Broome and his beautiful wife Julie were swingers, ready to try anything. Partner swapping and sado-masochistic games were a regular part of their sexual repertoire. But when Julie fell in love with one of their friends Alan was consumed by an insane jealousy that resulted in murder. He tied up blonde Julie and tortured her to death, administering the coup de grace with an electric power drill. Alan made a home video of the gruesome murder, which he later showed to Julie's lover, physician David Bates, before killing him too. Hardened policemen were sickened by the killing. One Scotland Yard detective described it as "the worst murder I've seen in twenty years with the force." Despite a nationwide manhunt Broome has eluded capture and is thought to have fled the country. It is rumoured that pirate copies of the video are available on the black market and much sought after by connoisseurs of so called "snuff" movies.
Body Count (2) Make Them Die Slowly (also known as Cannibal Ferox), which was made in America in 1983, has the dubious distinction of being the most banned film ever. It includes more than 360 slayings and dismemberings, leaving only enough time for six and a half minutes of dialogue. It is banned in 31 countries. Of mainstream Hollywood films, Die Hard 2 with 264 deaths holds the record for the highest body count.
Head, Hands and Feet Last night the dead body of a young girl was discovered in an abandoned warehouse in north London. The slaying is thought to be the latest murder committed by the infamous Head, Hands and Feet Killer. Over the past ten months the mutilated bodies of five pre-pubescent girls have been found. In each case the killer has removed the head, hands and feet, in what police believe to be an attempt at preventing identification of the victims. All the girls had been sexually abused, and the killer used the blood of his victims to draw an occult symbol on the ground next to their bodies. Full details have not been made public. As yet only two of the victims have been identified by the police.
Blood On show at the Saatchi Gallery in St John's Wood, north London is a sculpture made out of frozen blood. Artist Marc Quinn used nine pints of his own blood for the life-sized cast of a head entitled Self. Another artist, Navraj Shira of Gillingham in Kent, used blood to paint a picture of a man with a broken heart as "it seemed the most honest method." Navraj had an AIDS test to make sure the finished work was safe to view. An art exhibition at Walsall in the West Midlands, which featured an AIDS victim's ashes and blood from an HIV infected artist was branded sick. Tory councillor Melvin Pitt said: "I've got nothing against people being made aware of AIDS but not under the guise of art. It's very much in bad taste and the worst thing is that schoolchildren are going to be shown it." A California book dealer is selling copies of a novel called Drawing Blood which are impregnated with the odour of burning human flesh. The books became damaged when a man committed suicide by turning himself into a human torch and the enterprising dealer came up with this unique marketing ploy. The “special editions” of the book by writer Poppy Z. Brite are retailing at $600.
Dead Animals (2) Mother and Child Divided is the name of a piece of modern sculpture by wacky artist Damian Hirst. It consists of four tanks filled with formaldehyde and containing the severed halves of a cow and her calf. The sculpture, currently on show at London's Tate Gallery, is short-listed for the prestigious Turner Prize. The catalogue says: "The tanks are placed so the viewer can pass between the divided animals, closely examining entrails and flesh pressing against the glass." Artist Damian, 28, whose other works include pigs sawn in half and cow heads covered in maggots, said: "Cynics should come and see. It's easier to relate to dead animals than dead people."
Dead People (1) Edmund Kemper crushed his mother's skull with a hammer and cut off her head. Then he invited her friend Sarah Hallett over for tea. He strangled and decapitated her, then had intercourse with her torso... Ed Gein, the inspiration for Hitchcock's Psycho, dressed in human skin. In the 1950s he abducted and killed at least two women, stripping off their skin and decorating his house with it... Police raided Jeffrey Dahmer's flat and uncovered a sickening sight. Nine heads were found - two in the fridge and seven in the middle of having flesh boiled off the skulls. Wedged into a barrel were the bodies of four men and male genitalia were stored in a pot. Scraps of human skin and bone were everywhere, and the stench was unbearable...
Merda d'artista An artist's most famous piece of work is causing a bit of a stink at a New York gallery. Some of the 90 tightly sealed cans Piero Manzoni made 30 years ago are starting to leak. And the unpleasant smell of the contents seems to confirm the work's title, Merda d'artista... Italian for "Artist's S***" Many of the cans, which are priced at up to £30,000 apiece, have been bought by wealthy art collectors. Other works by Manzoni, who died 28 years ago, include signed hard-boiled eggs and entirely white paintings.
Antithesis In our agnostic age the serial killer stands alone as the personification of absolute evil, the Devil given human form. And as such he is the recipient of all that ersatz glamour which in previous times was bestowed upon the highwayman, the Elizabethan buccaneer, the Western gunslinger. The serial killer is our darkest fantasies made flesh and blood. We need to understand him, but we must also examine our fascination with all that he represents. The Jackist Manifesto
Glittering Prizes Britain’s most prestigious art prize was last night won by ceramics artist Grayson Perry, who commented “Well it’s about time a transvestite potter won the Turner Prize.” Perry turned up to accept the £20,000 cheque as his female alter-ego Claire, wearing a frilly purple dress decorated with rabbits, frowning hearts and the words “Cissy” and “Claire”. Perry’s work is known for dealing with such controversial themes as child abuse and his most famous piece is a vase titled We’ve Found the Body of Your Child, which displays a woman being restrained by a group of men while a baby lies on the ground. The bookies’ favourites, controversial brothers Jake and Dinos Chapman, were passed over by the judging panel. One of their nominated works, a sculpture titled Sex, consisted of bodies being devoured by maggots. In the past the Chapman brothers have shocked with depictions of naked children substituting sexual organs for more visible body parts and their series of sculptures based on the paintings of Goya, including Great Deeds against the Dead which shows the mutilated and castrated bodies of two soldiers hung from a tree. The other contenders for this year’s Turner Prize were video artist Willie Doherty and sculptor Anya Gallaccio.
Eternal Silence Police said yesterday that a sex-mad killer “skewered” at least ten female victims by impaling them on wooden poles. The crazed butcher left some victims with a wooden wedge in their mouths “like a symbol of eternal silence.” A man in his 20s was arrested by Moscow police. They said the killer thought he was “hypersexual” and that women would swoon with desire for him. When they didn’t, he killed them.
Dead People (2) Plans to bring a controversial exhibition of anatomy to London have provoked howls of outrage. The Body World show, which consists of 175 body parts and 25 corpses preserved by a process of “plastination” and displayed in the most graphic manner, has been seen by more than 8 million people worldwide. Exhibits include the body of an eight months’ pregnant woman with her stomach cut open to reveal the foetus and a chess player with his brain exposed. MP Anthony Steen said the only object of the show was to shock and added “I do not think art galleries do themselves any favours by encouraging the most revolting and degrading aspects of human nature.” “What possible benefit can a normal person gain from looking at dead bodies?” asked fellow Conservative Teddy Taylor and expressed fears that the exhibition would appeal only to “ghoulish groups in our society.” German Professor Gunther von Hagens, inventor of the “plastination” process and the man behind Body World, said his intention was to democratise anatomy and “The human body is beautiful and in this exhibition it appears frozen in time.” More than 4,500 people worldwide, including one man from Britain, have volunteered to donate their bodies after death so that Body World can continue.
Desecration New York’s Mayor Rudolph Guiliani threatened the Brooklyn Museum of Art with the loss of its $7m City Hall grant if the gallery did not cancel plans to stage the controversial Young Brit Art show Sensation. In particular the Mayor, a devout Catholic, objected to Chris Ofili’s painting of The Holy Virgin Mary adorned with the artist’s trademark elephant dung. ‘It offends me,’ said Mr. Guiliani and accused Ofili of ‘desecrating somebody else’s religion’. Another artist to come under fire was Damien Hirst, whose most famous work, Mother and Child Divided, was created by cutting two cows in half. Animal rights charity PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) said that the artist’s work glorified animal abuse and had no place in the art world. Sensation caused a storm of controversy when it was originally shown at the Royal Academy in London. Marcus Harvey's Myra, a portrait of child murderer Myra Hindley created out of children’s handprints, had ink and eggs thrown at it by irate members of the public.
Body Count (3) John Wayne Gacy, who was known as the Killer Clown, murdered more than 30 young men and hid their bodies in the crawl space beneath his house... Wayne Williams murdered more than 20 black children and young men in the American city of Atlanta... Anatoly Onoprienko, known as the Terminator, admitted to killing 52 people, at least 10 of whom were children, during a reign of terror in the Ukraine that lasted for six years...
Obscene (2) On show at an art display in Southampton is a sculpture that consists of a dozen life-sized model penises tied together with a length of cord. The work is entitled How long is a piece of string? Visitors to St Gregory's Art Centre in Norwich could be in for a nasty shock if they turn back the cover of a work of art called The Book of the Goddess. The centre of this volume has been hollowed out and replaced with a model of female genitalia. Other work on display at the Sacred & Profane exhibition includes pictures of winged penises painted on stained glass and poetry extolling the joys of masturbation.
Fan Mail Every week Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe is receiving up to 200 letters from women. Some propose, some get a sexual kick out of writing to him, and others seek the evil killer's help with their personal problems. Even teenage girls are included in his rapidly growing "fan club." At least six women who write to Sutcliffe on a regular basis have received around 300 letters from him in return. Sutcliffe, 47, who butchered 13 women, receives more letters than all the other patients at Broadmoor put together. A shocked insider at the special hospital said: "It's quite amazing. Very bizarre. The fact that this man butchered 13 women and attempted to murder seven others makes no difference to these women. "Some of the letters are very explicit sexually. They are having an intimate relationship with him by proxy. Others think he can help them solve their problems like these 'Dear So-and-So' columns." Sutcliffe, jailed for life in 1981, takes his new role very seriously. He answers every letter. Each new fan receives a signed passport photograph of himself, without his familiar beard. Sutcliffe always writes a message on it and adds three kisses.
Dead Animals (3) A sculptor was under fire yesterday for having five puppies killed in the name of art. Michael Brammer paid £3,000 for the lovable little pets to be destroyed and then stuffed. They decorate a piece of his modern art on display in a Copenhagen gallery. The 36 year-old Dane now faces possible cruelty charges after protests from furious animal lovers. Last night he was in hiding after receiving hate mail and death threats by telephone. Bomb warnings were sent to the gallery. Brammer bought the Labrador pups from their owners, pretending that they would be his pets. He said: "At first I had the extreme thought of using babies, but it wasn't possible. So I chose the puppies. They look innocent too." The stuffed puppies are mounted on a podium in the Danish gallery, surrounding a 10ft-high red, glass-fibre heart crowned with two white crucifixes. Pictures of Michael Jackson, Bill Clinton and Whitney Houston decorate the sculpture, which is called Faith, Hope and Charity With Friends. The storm was sparked by Brammer himself, who openly admitted what he had done. When animal clinics refused to sell him dead pups the sculptor bought live ones from private owners. The five puppies were killed by rifle shot. "I had them killed and stuffed at a cost of £600 per puppy," said Brammer. Brammer is willing to sell the sculpture for £50,000. Gallery owner Elisabeth Delin said: "The puppies are part of a serious piece of art." In Britain the RSPCA commented: "This was an evil thing to do."
Synthesis Existing at opposite poles of the social spectrum, the great artist and the master criminal stand alone as the only figures capable of effecting real change in a moribund society. One is to be loved and admired, while the other represents the very thing that we fear the most. But with the passage of time the borderline between these two spiritual archetypes has of necessity grown increasingly blurred. In an age when TV culture has transformed the great majority of the population into unthinking consumer drones there is a need for greater and deeper shocks to the body politic. The artists of the future must embrace criminality, working in the medium of flesh and blood to achieve their most potent effects. The Jackist Manifesto
Source material derived from The Daily Mirror, The Sun, The Sunday Mirror, The People, The News of the World and various online research facilities. Special thanks to Professor Aubrey Jacks for permission to quote from his book “The Jackist Manifesto: A Fresh Approach to Popular Culture”
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