John Latham (1921-2006)
God is Great, John Latham, 1991"Art is not trusted by society to do anything, and in this distrust the public aligns with common sense."
- from 'Report of a Surveyor', John Latham, Edition Hangsjörg Myor, Stuttgart, London, 1984
"'God is Great' 1991, a work in the Tate Collection by John Latham, which features the Bible, the Koran and the Talmud, was to have been included in this exhibition. However, having sought wide-ranging advice, Tate felt that to exhibit the work in the current climate would be inappropriate. The artist regrets this decision."
- notice displayed at the 'John Latham in Focus' exhibition, Tate Britain, London, 2005 – 2006.
A Conversation with John Latham
posted by Steven Ball at 7:28 pm
7 Comments:
Yes it was timely (or perhaps they knew of his impending demise) that Tate Britain had that mini Latham retrospective recently. An interesting artist who seems to have somewhat fallen between the cracks.
I think he had been quite frail for a while, but I don't think the timing was quite that calculated.
I liked the way the reference from 'Report...' has a kind of ambiguity (of course this is exaggerated by its being taken from a somewhat more complex source) and depends how one interprets 'common sense'. The text from which it is taken also proposes itself as "...an account of relatedness between frameworks arising from the common senses and that arising from art...".
Tate's decision not to exhibit 'God is Great' was based on a kind of 'common sense' arrived at by consultation and advice. Tate's shameful timidity shows a failure to understand the complexity of Latham's exploration of relatedness; in this case that includes the relatedness of different religious texts. The work's exclusion is an idiotic misunderstanding, an imbecilically paranoid over-reaction to a non-existant context and an indelible stain on what could otherwise have stood as a modest but long overdue tribute. The action is typical of Tate's overarchingly populist project, which would have all the problematics of conceptual art smoothed out in order to not challenge its visitors with difficult ideas.
Blimey anti Tate rant - but yes they were running scared of the wrong kind of controversy.
Well I do get tired of the hubris of the large dominant institution that Tate is prone to. I don't think it's such a great thing that a monolithic institution becomes so powerfully convinced of its position as a moral and cultural arbiter, especially when it is working with an artist who is more sophisticated than its own wrong-headedness, its willful misreading of Latham's work. Why did it think there would be any kind of controversy? This suggests that the only kind of controversy it is interested in is of the salacious tabloid gossip variety rather than grappling with the real politics of the day, which Latham's piece actually doesn't address anyway.
Anyway Tate's fair game for a bit of bashing isn't it?
Yes we are in an interesting phase where certain types of controversy are highly marketable and sanctioned and others are deemed politically incorrect. I think NS is on his way out anyway though after the Monkey paintings debacle....
Ah now you see you're gossiping!
Another example of this is the Channel 4 censorship of George Galloway's political opinions on Celebrity Big Brother, while breakfast table bragging about anal sex (or whatever it was) is openly broadcast. I'm not suggesting that anal sex shouldn't be discussed of course, more that it is deemed to be more socially acceptable than the airing of serious (whther you agree with Gorgeous George or not) political opinion.
Though overall George seems to be coming out of it quite well.....
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