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Thursday 4 December 2008

The advantages of living in a tip

There is a great deal to be said for living in a tip

A celebration of British mess and muddle

Tidiness is, by many people and in many cultures, regarded as a virtue in itself. Untidiness, conversely, is a vice which we who tend towards it try to hide, frantically attempting to order our normal domestic chaos when visitors threaten to call. But, if one considers the matter for a moment, it becomes obvious that there is a great deal — artistically, historically, and environmentally — to be said for living in a tip.

As any neat person will tell you, tidying means destruction. It involves ruthlessly discarding everything that it is not absolutely essential to keep. On occasion, that may mean destroying a valuable item, such as a work of art.

Tower Hamlets Council has decided to paint over graffiti paintings by the artist Banksy. ‘Whilst some graffiti is considered to be art,’ a spokesman conceded, ‘we know that many of our residents think graffiti in areas where they live, such as local housing estates, is an eyesore.’

Almost simultaneously came the news that ten pieces by Banksy had fetched more than £500,000 at auction. A little later we learnt that Islington Council had already restored a Banksy painting on Martineau Road five times.

Of course, there is room for more than one opinion about Banksy — though he is one of the very few British artists to have made an international impact since the days of Hirst and co. in the 1990s. But we can all now agree, I think, that the landlord of the villa Pablo Picasso rented at Antibes in 1924 made the wrong call. As is related in the latest volume of John Richardson’s biography, Picasso took over the villa’s garage as a studio, and in a mood of creative exuberance, covered its walls in murals. The proprietor, evidently a costively minded type, was infuriated.

‘Unswayed by Picasso’s argument that his “fresco” was worth a lot of money, the owner insisted that the artist pay to have the wall restored to its original state.’ That man’s heirs must be far from delighted with his decision. If Picasso’s painting was worth a lot in 1924, its value would be stratospherically higher in 2007 — tens of millions, at a guess. The market price of clean garage walls, on the other hand, has remained low.

It is wiser not to tidy up works of art. The Scottish illustrator A.J. Hartrick long remembered the afternoon when Vincent van Gogh called on him in his studio in Paris. The Dutchman, with a torrent of explanation and vigorous strokes of his pen, laid out a new composition he had in mind (but never in fact painted). Later, Hartrick fervently wished he had kept that piece of paper; at the time it probably seemed just litter.

More articles from: Martin Gayford | this section

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