The Guardian headlines James Howard
p2pnet.net news:- British artist James Howard became an overnight mainstream media sensation when advertising mogul Charles Saatchi snapped up his entire Royal Academy Schools graduation show. All 46 prints, each one a collage of photo images created to resemble a Net advertisement.
Says Howard’s blog in Guardian Unlimited:
“The asking price for the complete edition was £4,500 (almost $9,000 US), but he offered £3,000. I accepted without really thinking about it and went down to the local cafe to celebrate with a big breakfast. Everyone, myself included, was sort of stunned.”
Cool.
Or maybe not, because, “Check http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/art/2007/06/saatchi_liked_my_art_so_much.html and see how although its supposed to be my blog, im censored from commenting on it, because i complained that i didnt write the title. the guardian online contacted me and asked me to write a blog. i sent them a blog, and they asked if they could rewrite it,” Howard says in a p2pnet Reader’s Write under our Is freedom of speech dying online? story, going on:
i agreed to a rewrite, and the journalist and i went through it on the fone together, which was probably a mistake, in hindsight. then when i saw it was online, they had made a title up which i had never said or written or agreed to. it sounded like it was my words.
i emailed them and asked them to change it, but they said that because there were no quotes on it that it was a title and not a misquote. i know papers do that stuff all the time, but because it was me, it felt different.
My artwork deals with internet communication and future horrors, and this was all starting to feel abit close to what im interested in (and scared by)
i started leaving comments (on ‘my own blog’) saying how i hadnt written it and that the title was completely made up by the people at the guardian.
the comments i left were promptly deleted or edited and no mention was left on the blog by the moderator to show that they had been edited in that way.
I started accusing them of censorship, and these comments were deleted also, but luckily not before other people had seen them, so it started a debate on the guardian’s free speach policy stuff. i got a few kind phone calls from a moderator who tried to sort it out ( the mods were great over the fone) they actually tried to change the title, and it was changed, so everything was ok.
then i was on my way home and i got a call from another guy at the guardian. he was the one who had rewritten the article with me over the phone. (he had also been friendly untill this point)
he said he was puzzled by what had been happening on the web blog, and i said everything had been sorted out and appologised for the trouble. he continued to tell me that i shouldnt go accusing a national newspaper of censorship and that i could get sued. he also threatened to take the blog offline. i told him that it might be easier for him if he did, but i didnt care either way.
check the blog for more details. im really sick of getting censored.
the reason i post here is because my great friend fil has been following this site for a great many years and said that truth could be found without censorship or moderation except for spelling mistakes. and this community would listen. thankyou.
You’re welcome : )
On June 20, Howard posted on The Guardian blog:
… its been a weird day, and raised some interesting points about communication over the internet, which relates to the stuff i do. Infact i might make a new piece on censorship. a big red poster that says ‘no censorship- free speach’ with some doggies cats on it.
And on June 21:
i just had a new idea for a piece of work: it’s a 2 metre poster thats printed on premium epson paper that has burning dogs and cats all over it, and lots of big puffy pound signs. theres two animals on the phone, separated by one of those zig zag lines to show distance… one is a big type of dog, lets call him Dog ‘A’ and the other is a small impressionable dog, lets call him dog ‘j’.. their conversation goes something as follows:
Dog ‘A’ : “Im puzzled about whats been happening… you cant go arround acusing a national hound of censorship”
Dog ‘J’ : “all i wanted was to get the title right, and you kept taking it off. i wasnt in breach of any posting rules, so it was censorship”
Dog ‘A’ : “ill stop the whole thing if you dont stop this and national hounds can sue you for misusing the word censorship”
Dog ‘J’ : (thinking) i thought national hound was a much more understanding. And i dont apreciate being threatened over the fone by A.
Meanwhile, blog censorship aside, for the moment, “The question is, who wins?” – wonders Jessica Lack in The Guardian, continuing:
Saatchi gets a bargain – three years’ work for the rock-bottom price of £4,500 – and Howard gets notoriety, so it would seem that both of them have a reason to smile. Yet more than a few artists have suffered at the hands of Saatchi’s generosity in the past. The work of the Dublin-born abstract painter Sean Scully was devalued when, in the late 80s, Saatchi decided to turn his attention to the more gimmicky antics of a younger generation – and promptly off-loaded his collection of Scully’s works. A similar thing happened to Jake and Dinos Chapman, but both Scully and the Chapman brothers have returned, and mightier for it.
Howard’s wake-up call (quite literally – he was asleep when Saatchi rang) will certainly have caught the attention of London’s art dealers, who, whether they offer to represent him or not, cannot now ignore him. But the Saatchi branding can still have its problems. The dancer-turned-painter Stella Vine is for ever tagged as a “Saatchi darling” thanks to the collector’s purchase of her picture of Princess Diana in 2004. Depicting her as a sloppy drunk, with the words “Hi Paul can you come over I’m really frightened” scrawled next to her makeup-smeared face, it naturally made headline news in the Daily Mail and it has been impossible to judge her work fairly since.
Stay tuned ;P
Also See:
Guardian Unlimited – Saatchi liked the art so much he bought the lot!, June 20, 2007
The Guardian – Saatchi’s touch isn’t always golden, June 20, 2007
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