Degree Show Censorship — Vicky Gould’s New Show at Guy Hilton Gallery
‘Though loves shall be lost,
Love shall remain
And death shall have no dominion.’
-Dylan Thomas
This year’s Goldsmiths BA Fine Art Degree Show was once again an event that opened up debate and discussion. Controversial as some of the artwork may be, with the college being known for an open and creative approach to teaching, the fact that somebody’s work got censored came as a surprise. Vicky Gould’s artwork, which was focussed around her Goldsmiths tutor Paul Davis and touched on themes such as obsession and student/teacher relationships, got partly removed in this years’ degree show, leaving students speculating about the reasons whay as well as interested in the possibilities for artwork within the institutional context. In a new exhibition, Vicky talks about what actually happened.
The new show opened at the Guy Hilton Gallery on July 5, 2009. The quote above by Dylan Thomas is taken from the video in her installation and seems to put into words quite appropriately the end of an artwork that has raised some controversy towards the last days of the academic year; at the same time, it foreshadows a new beginning.
The exhibition titled “Vicky Gold Brand New Art Superstar”, that also showed work by Jack Barraclough, Alex Fear and Hannah Perry, revealed works by Vicky that had been censored by the college in the Goldsmiths degree show. While many assumptions had been made about reasons for the censorship, the college’s claim to take some work out of the show was related to copyright issues on Paul Davis’ behalf and that of his ex-wife Emma Davidson. According to those claims, the videos that were supposed to appear in the degree show included photos of Paul that Emma holds copyright to. Although it had been possible to see some of the video pieces on Youtube prior to the show at the Guy Hilton Gallery, those were later also removed by the website due to a copyright claim by Emma Davidson.
The new show proved an opportunity for Vicky to respond to on the one hand the censorship and on the other hand the reactions to her work seen in the degree show. However, the exhibtion was not exactly initiated by her but, more so, artist Mark McGowan who saw her degree show artwork and contacted Vicky. He “really saved me” says Vicky in terms of what was going to happen next after finishing her degree.
Besides showing work, the event also included a performance by Vicky which involved her dressed in a golden bikini pouring a chocolate mixture on top of her. While provocative, a funny side to the work cannot be denied. As Vicky states, it all started out as a laugh. “Paul found it (the early stages of her work) funny” she says, however further down the track the e-mails got more involved and in the end resulted in a harassment threat by his ex-wife.
About the motivation of her work Vicky says that she “wanted him to play back. If people don’t like it they should play back”. Although Vicky states that she is disappointed by Paul’s reaction, her claim seems sincere that she did not want to “piss them off” with the show. “I wondered if I should do it” she says, “but I think that if I did something else people would be disappointed”.
In the end, things already seem to be moving on. “We just went to Tracy Emin’s birthday party the other day” she says, just down the road form Guy Hilton Gallery, where they got invited to go to Paris. “And Gilbert and George live just over there”.
When asked the question, who will be the next ‘Paul’, her reply is “Mark, probably. I already have some stuff about him in this show. Mark would be good to have. He will play back”.
Mark McGowan is a performance artist based in London who is known for taking a different approach to public protest in his work. Featured on TV news programmes in the UK, such as BBC or Channel 4, as well as internationally, he raised attention through performances in which, sitting in a bathtub of baked beans, with a necklace of sausages around his neck and chips up his nose, he claimed to defend the full English breakfast and, in another piece, in protest against the royal family and fox hunting, was filmed while eating what was said to be chunks of a Corgi dog.
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