The question of what is art vexes the tax authorities as well as philosophers. Last month, the Art Newspaper reported the latest twist in a wonderful, long-running row. The European Commission has decided that two pieces of installation art — ‘Hall of Whispers’ by Bill Viola, and ‘Six Alternating Cool White/Warm White Fluorescent Lights/Vertical and Centred’ by Dan Flavin are not, after all, works of art. The first is classified as ‘DVD players and projectors’ and the second as ‘light fittings’. This makes them liable not for the 5 per cent VAT rate that applies to art sales, but the standard rate — now 20 per cent. In this month’s issue, the Art Newspaper campaigns vigorously for a reversal. But for those of us not in the art world, it is hard not to have a sneaking sympathy for the taxmen. If Mr Flavin did not want to have his six alternating cool white/warm fluorescent lights/vertical and centred treated as light fittings, why did he give them that title? They clearly are light fittings, after all, whereas their status as art is debatable. If the artists win their case, there is surely a risk that all manufacturers of light fittings will reclassify them as art to attract the lower rate. Sandy Nairne, the director of the National Portrait Gallery, is quoted as saying that the Commission’s ruling was ‘about a factual definition of what art is’. Yes, but since the dominant theories for the last hundred years have proudly broken down the barriers between art and everything else, it seems fitting that the results should have to pay the going rate. ‘You can’t just take lightbulbs out of a household appliance store and make a work of art,’ says Mr Nairne. I thought we had been taught, ever since Duchamp, that you can.
John Gross, who has just died, had many distinctions in the world of letters, but his obituaries did not report that he was the shortest-serving literary editor of The Spectator ever. In 1983, Alexander Chancellor, the editor, sacked A.N. Wilson from the job for a piece of mischief involving Clive James and Bel Mooney, and appointed John in his stead. John commissioned, it was alleged, one book review, and was then poached by the New York Times. He later returned to England and became theatre critic of the Sunday Telegraph. I inherited him when I became editor there in 1992. One day, he disparaged a new play by David Hare. Hare, who is a charming man in all other circumstances, is very sensitive to unfavourable comment on his work. ‘Your theatre critic’, he wrote to me, ‘is a subliterate dickhead.’ I have always treasured this judgment, because it was so perfectly wrong. John Gross was about as literate as it is possible to be. His learning was deep but, both in conversation and on the page, lightly worn. The last time I saw him he corrected me when I attributed to Auberon Waugh a witticism which was actually Jane Austen’s. He did it so delicately that I only noticed afterwards what a fool I’d been. Although there have been handsome obituaries of John in the newspapers (and Craig Brown writes about him so well on p.14), I am left with the irritated sense that he was under-appreciated. He was too clever, too witty, too modest for our age.
Still, I am sure John Gross will be properly praised at his funeral and memorial service. There are not all that many compensations for a life in journalism, but one is that we give each other good send-offs. We make decent space for the obituaries and take trouble with the commemorations. Words which, most of the time, we prefer to use as weapons, we turn into our substitutes for ‘floral tributes’. Last week, Anthony Howard got the works — an extravagantly High-Church funeral at St Mary Abbott’s, with Paul Johnson reading from I Corinthians, Roy Hattersley from John Donne and Michael Heseltine as Mr Valiant-for-Truth — a teetering between the exalted and the absurd which Tony would have enjoyed. Robert Harris gave a funny and touching eulogy. In an oblique way, Tony Howard played an important part in the history of The Spectator. This was because he was the last editor of the New Statesman to insist that it be a paper of general interest to intelligent readers. He had the imagination, for example, to make James Fenton the political columnist, and the courage to employ Bron Waugh (see above) to stir up the rage of the feminists. After Tony left the editorship in 1978, the paper became the prisoner of the sectarian left. As a result, the field was clear for Alexander Chancellor (also see above) to capture the best for The Spectator, Waugh and Johnson included. I was an undergraduate New Statesman reader at the time. I was converted.
Michael Heseltine is to be played by Richard E. Grant in the forthcoming film about Mrs Thatcher starring Meryl Streep. At first, I could not see how Withnail could translate into Tarzan, but actually there are striking resemblances — the cold stare, the solipsism, the surprising charm. I do not know who has been chosen to act Geoffrey Howe, but if the post is still open, they should raid Withnail and I again, and pick Richard Griffiths.
A press release arrives, announcing that Canongate Books has signed up Julian Assange, of WikiLeaks, for his first book. ‘I hope this book will become one of the unifying documents of our generation,’ Mr Assange is quoted as saying. It is curious how often those who set themselves up as the enemies of the powerful are themselves megalomaniacs.
Last week, I mentioned the case of Ned Ryan accidentally shooting an owl in front of the Queen, at Windsor. A friend gets in touch to say that a friend of his — not Ryan — also claims to have done this, at Balmoral. Obviously at least one of these stories is untrue. What is interesting is that in both cases the person told it against himself. Why? Could it be that people consider it worth relating (or inventing) their humiliation if it allows them to make it clear that they have been shooting with the Queen?
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