Stuckism is a radical art movement founded in London in 1999 to advance new figurative painting. Stuckists are  opposed to the current pretensions of  so-called Brit Art, Performance Art, Installation Art and Video Art – not the best way to solicit support from art world power-brokers Sir Nicholas ‘£22,300 for a tin of shit’ Serota at the Tate gallery and Charles Saatchi, the promulgator of pickled carcasses by Damien Hirst. In spite of – or because of – this, Stuckism, founded with 13 artists, is now an international movement of 178 groups in 43 countries.  
I coined the name after Billy Childish read me a poem describing how Tracey Emin, his former girlfriend, told him his art was ‘stuck! stuck! stuck!’

From 2000 onwards, the Stuckists gained worldwide media attention with an annual demonstration against the Turner Prize, initially dressed as clowns. (A sample Stuckist soundbite described 2006 Turner winner Tomma Abts’ abstract paintings as ‘doodles done by a lobotomised computer’.)

In 2002, to mark the opening of the Stuckism International Gallery in Shoreditch, a coffin labelled ‘The Death of Conceptual Art’ was deposited outside the nearby White Cube gallery, the dealer for Hirst and Emin. In 2003, the Stuckism gallery displayed a preserved shark in the window under the title A Dead Shark Isn’t Art to coincide with the display of Hirst’s version, when the Saatchi Gallery re-opened in County Hall.

In February 2004, Charles Saatchi discovered a new star, Stella Vine, painter of Princess Diana with a bloody mouth. However, Vine had been exhibited three years previously as a member of the Stuckists (and, by mistake, had married me for a couple of months, to boot). The Independent pointed out gratifyingly – for me, if not for her and him – that ‘Saatchi is following their [the Stuckists’] every move.’ He has not exhibited her since. In May that year, Saatchi pitched up with Nigella Lawson in a cab outside the late-to-open Stuckism gallery and stood on the pavement reading the manifesto in the window. In September, as part of the Liverpool Biennial, the Walker Art Gallery hosted The Stuckists Punk Victorian,  a five-month show of around 250 paintings by 37 artists. One of them, Jane Kelly, was dismissed from the Daily Mail after exhibiting a painting of Myra Hindley. The Walker reported that it was ‘a really, really popular show and very successful.’

In January 2005, a Saatchi Gallery press release outlined a ground-breaking new initiative – claiming that ‘throughout a period when photography, video and installation art have been at the forefront of museum attention, painting continues to be the most relevant and vital way that artists choose to communicate.’ This derivative proclamation prompted a demonstration at the launch of Saatchi’s The Triumph of Painting show with placards declaring ‘Saatchi the Stuckist’ and, in 2006, a symposium entitled The Triumph of Stuckism under the auspices of the Liverpool John Moores University.

In July 2005, a donation of 160 paintings from the Walker show was declined by Sir Nicholas Serota in the same week that the Tate purchased Brit artist Chris Ofili’s work, ‘The Upper Room’. I applied for the Tate trustee minutes under the Freedom of Information Act and pointed out that Ofili was a Tate trustee. The scandal was dragged through the press and, in 2006, the Charity Commission pronounced that Tate trustees had been acting illegally for 50 years in the way they acquired fellow trustees’ work. Serota commented stoically that the Stuckists had ‘acted in the public interest’.

Meanwhile, Stuckist artist Michael Dickinson was facing prosecution in
Istanbul for a collage showing the Turkish prime minister, Tayyip Erdogan, as a dog – his case has been adjourned again until October this year.
Continuing to act in the public interest, I started a petition on the British prime minister’s website asking him not to approve Serota’s reappointment as Tate director.  

Serota petition: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/tatedirector. Stuckist website: www.stuckism.com