PUBLICITY STUNT

November 2003

Do you ever think about what the perfect publicity stunt would be to alert the population of the world to a particular brand or cause? I don't, or at least I try not to. A number of things that I have been involved with in the past have been described by individuals and the media as publicity stunts. I've hated this, recoiled with hurt pride. The shimmering beauty and artistic integrity of whatever murky activity I had been up to sidelined, denigrated, written off as a mere publicity stunt, thus stripping it of any ... well, whatever my ego hoped it contained.

I've learnt my lesson. I've decided that in the future whatever I do should exist outside the context of the mass media. That it should exist on its own terms and have no need of the media for it to exert any power, passion or beauty it may have. A contradiction in terms maybe - I mean I'm only communicating these thoughts because you are reading these words in this rarefied corner of the publishing world.

At the time of writing I'm in Leeds. My 'How How To Be An Artist' exhibition has just opened here at the Leeds City Art Gallery. It is a prestigious regional gallery and I'm pleased with the way it looks. Tonight I'm doing the first of six spoken-word performance things that I do, also called 'How To Be An Artist', in the gallery space. I choose never to do these performances to more than 50 people. I like to keep it intimate. I've done this exhibition and live performance at a number of our other regional cities. All the performances, bar one, have sold out.

It's 11.36am right now and just before I came out to start writing these notes I was told they had only sold six tickets for tonight's performance. I didn't dare ask how the other nights were selling. Of course I've already worked out where the blame should lie. Only one of the local media interviews that I gave has run, and of the 300 posters that should have been flyposted around the city centre and the universities, I've only seen three up. So it's nothing to do with me and my pulling power.

But six fuckin' tickets, this is going to take intimacy to new levels. Maybe I should suggest we just go down to the pub, and for the price of a pint I will tell them my tale there.

What I need now is a hard-core publicity stunt. Something that makes the front page of today's Yorkshire Evening Post, something that gets people thinking 'That Bill Drummond, I've always dug his radical-maverick, fuck-the-system chic thing, I'd better get a ticket for one of the performances he's doing in town before they all sell out.'

On my way from the gallery to the café, where I'm writing these notes, my mobile rang. It was Warren Jackson from this magazine. He wanted to know if I had done the drawing and text for the next issue that I had promised. 'No, sorry Warren, but look do you mind if I don't do the drawings of the carpets we talked about but a drawing of a tin of Drummond's International Grey instead?'
'What's that?'
'It's this grey emulsion paint that I'm producing and promoting. “A different shade in every tin.” I've just done this poster to advertise it, where I request the public uses it to paint any institution or object they find either morally or aesthetically offensive.'

And as I am saying these words into the mobile phone, I'm walking by the bronze reclining woman Henry Moore statue that is reclining outside the Leeds City Art Gallery. Henry Moore was from Leeds. When I first went to art school, Henry Moore was still considered to be Britain's only international art superstar. Of course I thought he was a load of bollocks and, even worse, he was boring, without emotional or intellectual depth. Nowadays I don't give a fuck about Henry Moore, don't think about his work from one decade to the next. Does anybody? That was until I went past the statue 30-odd minutes ago and had an idea.

This is the idea. I could get a couple of tins of Drummond's International Grey from the back of my Land Rover, give the reclining woman the once-over, then paste up one of the posters advertising the paint on its plinth. Then phone in an anonymous message to the news desk of the Yorkshire Evening Post. That should do it, secure the front page of that day's paper and sell all the unsold tickets for that evening's performance.

I cut short my conversation with Warren Jackson, telling him I'd be getting back to him later. Then I phoned John Hirst, who's working with me on the show. 'Hi John, I've got this idea that should sell the tickets.' And I told him what I planned.
'Don't be fucking stupid Bill. If you do that, all it will achieve is to confirm the suspicions of all those that think you have a chip on your shoulder about the art establishment, that what you do has no more to it than the publicity that it generates. And anyway the gallery would kick you out. Just go and get done whatever you are supposed to do for that Carlos magazine and deal with the fact that only six people in the whole of Leeds wanted to spend money on hearing what you have to say about anything.'
'Okay John.'

Post Script (written 13 days later)
My ego would like it to be known that although that Monday did not completely sell out, all the other five performances did. And that although the reclining woman was left ungreyed, I'm still looking forward to finding the perfect morally or aesthetically offensive target.