I WATCH “SCHOOL OF SAATCHI” IN MY DREAMS YOU GUYS
Saatchi Judge Kate Bush
Note: You will like this more if you do the thing where you make your computer read it out loud to you in a weird voice
The real Kate Bush was born on July 30th 1958. She is an English singer-songwriter, musician, and record producer. Her diverse musical style and idiosyncratic vocal style have made her one of England’s most successful solo female performers of the past 30 years. Bush was signed by EMI at the age of 16 after being recommended by Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour. In 1978, at age 19, she topped the UK Singles Chart for four weeks with her debut song “Wuthering Heights”, becoming the first woman to have a UK number-one with a self-written song. She has been nominated for three Grammy awards.
The judges on the television show School of Saatchi are Barbican galleries director Kate Bush, critic Matthew Collings, artist Tracey Emin and art collector Frank Cohen.
I get very happy and then sad when I realize that the real Kate Bush isn’t about to appear on my computer screen. This show is about six artists. Whoever is the best gets to exhibit their work at Newspeak: British Art Now, Saatchi’s exhibition at The State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. They also get a studio to use for three years.
Anyways, watching this show makes me feel uncomfortable and guilty and excited. It’s nowhere near as good as “The Art School Girls of Doom” but it manages to keep my conscious occupied so that I don’t have to think about how I am one of those millions of wannabe hip kids who is going to art school because I lack any functional real-world skills and I want to avoid every kind of responsibility for the rest of my life. You should watch this show if you want to be a real artist. You should watch this show if you think art is stupid. You should watch this show if you want to be convinced that you might have a chance at being the NEXT BIG THING.
To be completely honest, I fell asleep watching the finale of the show, so I had no idea who won. I kind of felt like keeping it that way until the other night while eating dinner my friend mentioned how the chick from Slade won. Eugenie Scrase (that’s her name) is 20 and from London. The youngest of the six, she is currently studying Fine Art Sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art where her tutors were encouraging about the TV series. Born in France, she moved to Britain in the early 1990s with her family and lived in Buckingham. Difficulties with dyslexia meant she spent most evenings in the school art department. Her sculptures and installations are formed largely from found objects. She is living the post-teen dream and shit, am I jealous. I can’t believe that I am here. There are lots of people who think that they are in love with her.
I wish I was Eugenie Scrase
“I understand that the Russians (who are hopelessly stuck in the old ideas of “meaning and value” in Art) expressed a desire for the return to their Cold War isolation after seeing this piece (The one that she made with the tree trunk). They have apparently threatened to send a Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and a Raphael to the Saatchi, Gagosian, and Mary Boone Galleries, where they will be simultaneously displayed in a tasteless and confrontational affront to Post-Modern sensibilities. I am alerting Homeland Security. “
EVERYONE IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD IS LOOKING FORWARD TO HER FUTURE WORKS
I can’t believe that I am here (again)
Art school also allows you to immerse yourself in a community that supports art. If you come from a family or environment that is baffled (or even threatened) by your artistic attempts, this can be powerful stuff. You may feel like you’ve finally found “your people”.
Some people who teach art do so because they don’t believe they can be successful selling it. (Though many teach so they can have the freedom to create the art they want, without worrying about having selling it.)
Either way, the art school experience can make the issue black-and-white. There are “artists” and there are “non-artists”. There are “rich/famous/successful” artists, and there are “failed artists”. No gray. No spectrum. No range. This is probably and hopefully a lie.
But it is good to remember that opportunities like this do not arise every day and in most people’s lives they never arise.
MYTH: You need an MFA to be a real artist!
REALITY: The real proof is in the work.
Work on Display
THE SCHOOL OF ART ART SCHOOL ART ART SCHOOL OF ART ONLINE ART SCHOOL GIVES YOU PRECIOUS GIFTS CHARLES SAATCHI IS SO ENIGMATIC BUT YOU WILL NEVER GET TO SEE HIM HAHA
The people on this show are not the best artists out there, but I think that maybe that is the point. They are interesting, they are okay, and they are good, too. JUST REMEMBER, even if you have loads of “talent” and “ability” and “creativity” and “artistic expertise”, that doesn’t mean that anyone is going to notice or give a shit or care at all about the art that you are making and you will probably never make anything that anyone besides your mom and your girlfriend will look at after you leave art school.
It just didn’t work.
DO ONLY THINGS THAT YOU ARE GOOD AT AND DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT THINGS THAT YOU ARE NOT GOOD AT
Words by Grace Miceli, Stills taken from “School of Saatchi”