art hero

I don’t have a lot of art heroes. Now Angus has become an art hero to me, and sad to say, mostly because he is dead. We used to be friends and worked together on some art shows and some writing, then I left London and I didn’t see him or his work for a long time. When I did see him again it was at an unmentionable painting show, which was hugely depressing for me. They weren’t Angus’ paintings but he wouldn’t critique the work with me which led me to say some things about the art environment and his attitude that maintained that rarified snobspot.

I was really shocked that he killed himself, I knew him to be deep and moody but also sensible and grounded: of course it was double-gutting that the last conversation we had was so damning. Still a few weeks after he died I had a brilliant dream: Angus was calling me on the phone in an other-world white press room: he sounded young and energized, he accepted my apologies but also said I was right to slag him off in NYC that night, when I told him I loved him , he said he knew. The voices of others in that white room came in loud and distracting. I woke up and felt better about him. I pulled a card and it was the karma card, four of wands for completion.

I always liked his early work, I liked most everybody’s early work. I didn’t know what to make of the more recent YBA fest In-Gadda-whatever.. its difficult to get much sense from computer-screen images. I have an aversion to big bronzes, they seem so ostentatious, but now I’ve been looking at A’s gorillas more closely. I found this great image of A looking up into the clay face of a gorilla yet to be bronzed. I love the photo and I love knowing how versatile an artist A was. Can’t be at all easy to sculpt so huge in clay.. I like how the gorillas are so monumental, heavy-looking, ponderous. So unlike those slicko appropriated photos with interfered surfaces blah etc. Now I see how prolific he has been and there are a slew of videos, sculptures, painting, installations he had the whole contemp smorgasbord covered it seems . Uber-versatile.

Course , so many artfolk are so important that those juicy gorilla images seem to be copyrighted, but I like this weird painting he did quite recently.. psychedelic but normal, whats not there shows whats there.

I think his art was getting better and better, thats what happens when you keep doing and growing and changing. Why stop?

Even tho its kind of maudlin on a monday to be mulling over suicide, I’m sharing because I think his stuff is fucking great!! I have a gorilla print out in my cubicle and he makes me feel good!

Tags: angus fairhurst