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          Front Page  shock

Sunday, February 16, 2003

Art Stunt Less Than Persuasive

By Leanne Potts
Of the Journal
    The Maligned Artist vs. The World, Part 34,261. An unemployed British actor sealed himself in a wooden crate the size of a portable toilet last week and mailed himself to London's Tate Museum to make a statement about how society mistreats artists.
    Dan Shelton, 23, told a London newspaper he turned himself into living art to protest the way artists are treated like goofball slackers. In his artistic statement, Shelton wrote that he was mimicking inventors who copyright an idea by writing it down and mailing it to themselves.
    "I am going to copyright myself... ," Shelton wrote at www.creativeminority.org. "In this way I will demonstrate ownership of myself as an object, in order to challenge society's view that I have less value than the art I produce."
    When the box containing Shelton arrived after a two-hour truck trip, Tate staff members applauded. (Shelton had notified the Tate of his plan to ship himself there; what's the point of performance art if no one witnesses the performance?)
    After the museum staff finished clapping, they told Shelton the Tate would not be commissioning him for the work. Translation: Cute, but the most prestigious art museum in the U.K. will not be paying you to do this.
    Shelton's project was funded by a 10,000-pound grant (that's about $16,000 U.S.) from a foundation established by Charles Webb, a mistreated artist himself.
    In 1963, the British author sold the film rights for his novel "The Graduate" for $23,000. His book was made into the iconic 1967 film that gave us Mrs. Robinson as archetype for bitter middle-aged woman and made a little-known actor named Dustin Hoffman a star.
    The movie grossed $98 million. Webb got nothing.
    For decades, Webb and his wife, Fred (like Cher or Madonna, she is just Fred), lived in poverty, working at a Kmart outside London and home-schooling their children. Then last year, film rights to their latest novel "New Cardiff" (Charles wrote it, Fred illustrated) were sold to a film company for an undisclosed amount. The film, "Hope Springs," stars Minnie Driver and Colin Firth and will be in theaters in April.
    Webb and Fred used the proceeds to establish the Creative Minority Foundation. Each year the organization will give a grant to the artist who comes up with the best project showing how society treats creative people like dirt.
    Fred's reasoning is this: Artists make art because they are compelled by genetics. Society devalues artists by:
   

Assuming that anyone can be an artist (witness the Bob Ross phenomena or the myriad creative writing workshops). Fred feels dilettantism equals disrespect.
   

Believing artists who spend their days making stuff in their studio are just trying to avoid getting a real job like the rest of us.
    Fred, Charles and Dan aren't doing much to eradicate the stereotype of artist as weirdo. I'm not sure mailing yourself to a museum articulates to the world that artists are professionals deserving of society's respect.
    And Fred refused to answer my questions about the foundation unless I agreed to write an article reuniting her husband with his estranged brother in Las Cruces. Once again, not very professional.
    But their gripe is not a new one among artists.
    "Artists are the (human dregs) of the world," a gifted but struggling painter friend of mine once complained after having been asked to donate yet another painting to yet another charity. Acquaintances were always asking him for free paintings, too. He felt the regular solicitation of freebies was an indication of how little the world valued him, his time and his skills.
    "We're always expected to give away our time and our work, as if donating our life's work is just no problem for us," he said. "What people are saying when they ask for free paintings is that all our work is good for is giving away."
    He's got a point. When was the last time a charity asked an orthopedic surgeon to donate a knee operation to a silent auction?
    Shelton was the first winner of the Creative Minority award.
    No word on whether he spent all of his grant money on his artwork. (There was no listing in Brighton, England, for a Dan Shelton. Perhaps he can't afford a phone?)
    But since society doesn't take artists seriously, let's hope he saved some for ramen noodles, rent and postage for his next project.
    To apply for next year's Creative Minority grant, go to www.creativeminority.org.
   

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    Leanne Potts can be reached at lpotts@abqjournal.com. For more musings on popular culture, go to www.abqjournal.com/weblogs/shock.htm.