The missed link

[imomus]

Last weekend, the British artist Angus Fairhurst hanged himself at a remote Scottish beauty spot, on the last day of his solo show at London gallery Sadie Coles. Best-known for a piece involving a badly-fitting gorilla suit entitled "The Missing Link", Fairhurst was himself a sort of missing link between members of the Young British Artists generation. A close friend of Damien Hirst and ex-partner of Sarah Lucas, Fairhurst graduated from Goldsmiths with them and helped Hirst organise the 1988 group show Freeze, seen as YBA's originating moment.



Reports in the British press of the artist's death at the age of 41 sketched a portrait of a self-deprecating under-achiever much-loved by the much bigger art stars who were his friends and peers. The Daily Telegraph called him "the art world's secret weapon" but noted that his "self-effacing" work was dismissed as "frustratingly slight": "his essentially cerebral approach often seemed overshadowed by the more visually exuberant work of Hirst and Lucas". For The Guardian, Fairhurst was "a well-liked artist who tended to play down his standing and talent". Obituary photographs of the artist tended to show him together with his friends rather than alone.



My exposure to Fairhurst's work was also slight: I saw his conceptual band Lowest Expectations (they supported Pulp at the Brixton Academy once) at the ICA twelve years ago. As Frieze describes, the band, consisting of Fairhurst and his artist friends, mimed to sampled loops of music by Supergrass, Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, Gil Scott Heron and Pulp.

Nobody can say at this point exactly why Fairhurst took his own life, but the obituaries report the general context, and highlight a point my current column on the Frieze website, Metacritics and Strangers, inadvertently touches on. It's a piece about how the internet tries to quantify art algorithmically. Describing ArtFacts.net, I wrote: "Here, artists, dealers, buyers and interested observers can indulge their narcissism and schadenfreude by poring over how their artist ranking relates to their auction turnover. They can watch a plummeting exhibition ranking turning, a year or so later, into plummeting auction prices, or plot up to four artists’ auction and exhibition stats on top of each other to pick out, for instance, the winners and losers in a group show, or the high flyers from a bunch of art school friends who all graduated the same year."

Fairhurst, as reported in the UK press this week, emerges very much as that less-successful artist in a bunch of art school friends, the overlooked figure in the group show. ArtFacts ranks him at 1103 (and falling) on its "stock exchange of reputations" -- Sarah Lucas is at 318 and Damien Hirst at 49. These raw stats are, of course, arbitrary and banal. I end my article by saying that such quantifications tell us very little indeed about art. But of course they can determine life outcomes: the Daily Telegraph reports that Angus Fairhurst Ltd, Fairhurst's company, had £50,000 in the bank and owed £30,000. His friend Damien Hirst, meanwhile, sits on a personal fortune estimated conservatively at £200 million.

The relationship between happiness and money is something I've looked at here on Click Opera. In Richer isn't happier, a piece from February 2006, I looked into Richard Layard's ideas about the relativity of happiness: "Layard believes that people don't get happier in proportion to their wealth because happiness is relative. He quotes Karl Marx: “A house may be large or small; as long as the surrounding houses are equally small, it satisfies all social demands for a dwelling. But if a palace rises beside the little house, the little house shrinks into a hut”.



While increasing wealth doesn't mean increasing happiness, a sense of relative deprivation in relation to your immediate peer group can certainly make you unhappy. Angus Fairhurst died at a remote Scottish cottage. His friend Damien Hirst lives in the massive Toddington Hall, described by the Evening Standard as "a far cry from the traditional view of the lonely artist's freezing garret," and a "reward of fame". Although Fairhurst's death was by suicide, many commentators this week seemed to be suggesting that Evil Gini may have had a hand in this -- by all accounts -- lovely man's tragically premature demise.

Comments

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

I dunno, "he offed himself because he wasn't rich enough" seems like an awfully mean eulogy, used as it is as a cudgel against art.hotornot.com. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, maybe he had some kind of sudden epiphany that made life unbearable. Artists love those.

Although I suppose the epiphany could've been that he's not as rich or successful as his comrades.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I think this is more about how people measure themselves in relation to their immediate peer group, not about money. In other words, it's about the relativity of the sense of failure and deprivation, and the kind of proximity you need to the success of others to really feel your own lack of it. It's about, in other words, "a group of friends".

[imomus.livejournal.com]

And in that context it's worth remembering that the Gini coefficient is not a measure of brute wealth, it's a measure of a ratio and a relationship.

[(Anonymous)]

Momus, you've got me wondering about how you stand here with regards to the Gini coefficient. You seem to be doing more or less what you want, when you want. But you're very touchy about criticism, and you're eager to point out any little mention you receive in the media, so I guess how you're perceived by your peers must be very important to you. And I also guess that a lot of your peers are doing "better" than you, at least in terms of how the culturesphere or the world at large would judge things. Does this depress you at all? Do you wish your activities were more widely noted, or doesn't it bother you?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I'm not particularly interested in personalizing this to my own case, Anon -- all I can say is that I'm perhaps lucky enough not to have any very, very successful friends, and to be equipped with a sort of psychological self-righting mechanism (which may be nothing more than a lunatic narcissism and a "delusion of adequacy") which keeps me happy with my life. Don't knock it!

What I am interested in talking about is the Gini thing. Fairhurst died with £20,000, Hirst lives on with £200 million. Now, that's a co-efficient of 10,000:1. Ten thousand Hirst pounds to every one Fairhurst pound.

I'd like to question what sort of society rewards two art school graduates so differently, and what it is about Hirst's work that makes it so vastly over-valued. I personally don't like Hirst's work much, although I do think it expresses unpleasant truths about the society it comes from rather efficiently and even elegantly -- truths about death, domination and drugs. And I think the ratio disparity (the Gini coefficient) between Hirst and Fairhurst also expresses an unpleasant truth about how our society works.

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

That just brings it up to "He offed himself because he wasn't as successful as his peer group," which isn't much more complimentary. It still puts it down to envy when it could've just been a bad swerve of the brain chemicals at the wrong time. Suicidal depression isn't necessarily situational.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, ironically when it comes to gini coefficients, the art world reveals itself to be one of the most savagely unequal spheres of activity in our society. I mean, you don't find university lecturers who earn 10,000 times more than other university lecturers, do you? Or fishmongers, or book editors, or newsreaders. And if Fairhurst had £20,000 in the bank, he was on average doing well as an artist!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I mean, you don't find university lecturers who earn 10,000 times more than other university lecturers, do you?

No, but the general trend in our societies is towards that sort of winners and losers high-Gini scenario. I think, for instance, of the recent dispute (http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,2253953,00.html) between Martin Amis and Terry Eagleton over "Islamofascism". The Guardian reports that Eagleton (representing my take on the question, by the way) may lose his University of Manchester job over the spat. Amis also teaches at the University of Manchester. For just 28 hours of teaching there per year he gets paid £80,000.

Not sure how much Eagleton's pension is, but I'd bet the Gini coefficient there is, as we say in Scotland, a stonker.

[(Anonymous)]

"I'd like to question what sort of society rewards two art school graduates so differently, and what it is about Hirst's work that makes it so vastly over-valued."

The over-valuation is purely your own perception of his work crossed with what others who do appreciate it are willing to pay. Life isn't fair, and if we are going down this road, which we are judging by the comments, then how come U2 sell millions of records and The frames sell thousands? Like the two said artists are graduates who produce art, these two are bands from ireland and produce music. It's all about giving the public what they want in art
(if you're looking to sell), and for whatever reason poorly fitted gorilla suits were not it. Simple.

wwb

[thomascott.livejournal.com]

A more questing obituary than anything in the broadsheets..

Of course the irony in Fairhurst's passing will be a rise in the monetary value of his works, he now qualifies for 'tragic artist' status, his subtlety vis-a-vis the sledgehammer immediacy of some works by his peers will be 'discovered', he can now rise in that Gallup poll of reputations you refer to.

Premature decease is another integer in the equation that links artist, art, art's metaphysical value and it's crude monetary value.

[(Anonymous)]

Of course you're right about the general trend, but the art market nonetheless offers an exacerbated, hyperbolic version of this trend. Which is ironic, considering that contemporary art is often portrayed as 'oppositional' to the values of a turbo-capitalist society that produces these high-Gini scenarios. Art has made a faustian pact with society's winners, and therefore must, despite appearances, have an interest in the winners' values. But of course it was ever thus!

[qscrisp.livejournal.com]

Must say, I'd rather someone thought I'd topped myself because of envy than because of bad chemicals.

Funny how people seem inclined to treat chemicals as a kind of prime mover, and never moved by anything else in turn.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

You know, a childish scenario passed through my mind when I read those obituaries: on the last day of his show Angus phones Sadie to ask how many pieces have been sold. She tells him "None, Angus" and he says "Don't worry, Sadie, I have an idea..." It won't save him but -- he's such a sweet man -- it will save her.

[qscrisp.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure it is that simple. If you work within a given field, within the art-world, for instance, I'd be very surprised if you didn't find a lot of weird glass-ceiling mechanisms at work.

I suppose you could say it's 'simple' in one way. Someone recently, talking to me about the frustrations of writing, said that if you were the best footballer in the world, or something, and no one cared, naturally you'd be pissed off, and this is an analogy that people seem to understand... until you apply it to something like writing or art. In this case, you might call it the simple misfortune that more people are interested in football than in art or literature, but I still think there are factors at work within the commercial processes by which art/literature is mediated to the public, which also have an influence in cases like this.

[(Anonymous)]

Sadie hardly needs saving. I sincerely hope Angus didn't die in order to make an already wealthy gallerist even wealthier.

[thomascott.livejournal.com]

Of course this leads to that intractable debate on what exactly art is?
Is it something that matches the drapes of the living-room/superficial 'aesthetic of the instant' or is it something that challenges our ideas, perspectives, prejudices?
Why is piece X valued at $1,000,000 and piece Y valued at $1,000 when I prefer the latter to the former?

[(Anonymous)]

perhaps he wished for his name to be remembered and to be seen as successful more then he wished for life.

[(Anonymous)]

The difference between art and football etc is this. In art you can be someone's favorite artist, but not everyones. It is the same with football players. The difference is in football if you are the best in the world you can win the "player of the year award" - if you are the best and you don't win this you have every right to feel aggrieved, yet in art there is no such prize. So if you are looking for one.Well who knows what your doing.

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

Funny how people seem inclined to treat chemicals as a kind of prime mover, and never moved by anything else in turn.

I take it you've never seen an overly touchy-feely LJ comm that makes people cut posts for "triggering" content.

The "bad chemicals" thing is actually based on my own experience. I've had occasional down periods that were not related to my circumstances, and even in gloomy periods the wild (un-acted upon) suicidal impulse. Thankfully these things aren't strong in me, but if I'd decided to cast myself down the library stairwell when I was 21 people might've seen that I'd complained about not having a boyfriend at the time and then concluded that I died for lack of love and not an unrelated confluence of a vulnerable moment and an opportunity. And, if the right people got ahold of the relevant biographical details, my body would be thrown on the pile of gay youth suicides for next year's statistics, losing any real sense of what lead up to that moment.

The lack of love story IS a better story... if you're Tennessee Williams, but I'd prefer there not be a story. If you were to somehow contact him and ask him why, he might not even himself be able to explain why he did it.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I did allow for the ultimate unknowability of Angus' act in the piece, but I think "why we all think he did it" is an equally interesting topic.

[(Anonymous)]

After reading all your comments I'm suddenly reminded of the tipping point theorv by Gladwell but as an artist and great fan of the arts I must say that time and time again I see that the reason people aren't as sucessful as others is because they don't want to be.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Well, motivation has to take its place beside talent, timing, connections, tenacity and luck.

Personally, I've been inclined to believe people like Jarvis Cocker when they say fame is deeply disappointing. But I think some artists get into the position that they can't live without it, and can't live with it.

[thomascott.livejournal.com]

Is that not just too reductivist?
Are Momus and other artists I admire just being willfully obscure as opposed to making the art which they wish to?
Unfortunately art critics and the art establishment are (within their own sphere of understanding) just as guilty as the mass public in their preference for art that they 'know', that contains familiar signposts, points of reference, potentiated linearity of interpretation etcetera rather than that which trips up their critical faculties, that (even momentarily) casts them adrift..

Money or boredom?

[(Anonymous)]

I can't imagine an artist committing suicide for a reason other than romantic. Poverty, total vagabondage, they'd probably regard as a fascinating chapter in their ongoign autobiography, an armoury of experiences.

Mind you it can just get very boring.

I liked his slightness. Less of the ‘overpotent symbolism'.

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

"I'd like to question what sort of society rewards two art school graduates so differently"

The answer is: a society with preferences.

Surely we would be happier without preferences. surely we would all be fairer stripped of our preferences, our personalities, our humanity. And if wealth and prestige can't be handed out equally to one and all, well, lobotomies for one and all! That would soon change things. Oh to be automata. In the name of equality!

The satyr chief Silenus once shared with King Midas a profound philosophy: That the best thing for a man is not to be born, and if born, should die as soon as possible. I'm not sure if Silenus revealed this secret to Midas before or after he was able to turn everything he touched to gold.