THE STUCKISTS PUNK VICTORIAN

Walker Art Gallery and the Lady Lever Art Gallery

The first major national exhibition by the controversial Stuckist art group, which endorses painting and strongly opposes conceptual art, is being held atáWalker Art Gallery andáLady Lever Art Gallery 18 September – 28 November 2004.

The Stuckists Punk Victorian, showing during Liverpool Biennial 2004, features more than 250 paintings, representing a cross-section of output of the group – including work by its leading artists - which has caused outrage, enthusiasm, contempt and provocation in the art world since being founded in 1999.

Stuckist co-founder Charles Thomson says:

“In five years the Stuckists have grown from 12 artists to an international movement. I am very pleased that a museum of the stature of Walker Art Gallery has recognised the importance of this new artistic impetus.”

Ann Bukantas, curator of fine art at Walker Art Gallery – part of National Museums Liverpool - says:

“We have never shied away from putting on controversial exhibitions. The Stuckists Punk Victorian offers visitors the opportunity to make up their own minds about this provocative new figurative art and gives a diverse range of artists the opportunity for their work to be seen by a wider public.”

The Stuckists oppose ‘Postmodernism’ and conceptual art - famously demonstrating dressed as clowns outside the Turner Prize – declaring painting as the radical medium of self-discovery and real art.

The group was founded to restore values of authenticity, content, meaning and communication in art. They have inaugurated ‘Remodernism’ – theá rebirth of spirituality and meaning in art, culture and society.

The group’s name derives from an insult by Tracey Emin, who declared

“Your paintings are stuck, you are stuck! Stuck! Stuck! Stuck!”.

Stuckism now has more than 80 groups worldwide. The Stuckists Punk Victorian is at theá Walker but includes more paintings and Stuckist photography at the Lady Lever Art Gallery.

The Stuckists Punk Victorian runs alongside (but separate from) Britain’s biggest painting competition, John Moores 23 exhibition of contemporary painting, also at Walker Art Gallery.

A comprehensive new book, The Stuckists Punk Victorian, with essays by Edward Lucie-Smith and Paul O’Keeffe, will be published to accompany the exhibition.

Main featured artists in the exhibition include: Philip Absolon, Frances Castle, Elsa Dax, Eamon Everall, Paul Harvey, Ella Guru, Wolf Howard, Bill Lewis, Joe Machine, Peter McArdle, Mandy McCartin, Sexton Ming, Charles Thomson, Charles Williams.

Other artists represented include: Stephen Coots, David John Beesley, Dan Belton, Godfrey Blow, John Bourne, Jonathan Coudrille, J Todd Dockery, Michelle England, Brett Hamil, Stephen Howarth, Rachel Jordan, Tony Juliano, Jane Kelly, ZF Lively, Emily Mann, Terry Marks, Daniel Pincham-Phipps, Jesse Richards, Matthew Robinson, Mary von Stockhausen.

Stuckist photographers exhibiting at Lady Lever Art Gallery are: Andy Bullock, Larry Dunstan, Wolf Howard, Charles Thomson.

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