ROLL OVER JENNY HOLZER

2002

It’s the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. We are on the award-winning south beach at Lowestoft. The tide is on the ebb and the sun is doing well for a not yet even April morning.

I check my mobile in case my mother has left a message. She hasn’t. Neal Brown has. He phoned from the Henry Peacock gallery. He wanted to thank me for my contribution to the show and tell me the bunches of daffodils had been especially appreciated, all 40 of them. I’d bought a whole box, twenty quid wholesale, off the flower stall on Aylesbury market for the opening. But the subject that Neal Brown was wanting to broach with me was the indelicate one of money. The Henry Peacock is a commercial gallery. Its very existence relies on enough people suffering from the belief that their lives would be that bit more complete if they were to purchase what they saw hanging there. Neal and, more importantly, Thom Winterburn, the gallery owner wanted to know what price tag I would care to hang on my exhibited work. That is, of course, if I was inclined to sell it.

I buried my youngest daughter, Tiger up to her neck in the sand and watched a couple of fishing boats head for home and I thought that, as works of art in their own right, the two framed copies of my The Daffodils story – one displaying the front of the pamphlet, the other the back – are non-starters. They may look cute in their neat frames hanging on a gallery wall, but nothing more. And anyway, they aren’t the art, the art is something bigger, something far less definable than anything that can be shoved in a frame and hung on a wall.

So what can I sell, how can I turn a coin? I mean, all this setting up phone lines, printing pamphlets, doing deals with florists, racing around at all sorts of hours has put me a few bob out of pocket. Added to that I’ve been trying to work out in my head how much it would cost to send every vicar, priest, minister, pastor, imam, rabbi, chaplain and any other man of the cloth I’ve missed out, a copy of my Daffodils pamphlet. A fuckin’ fortune, is my guestimate. And I don’t want to put a price on the whole polling thing. To commodify that would be to undermine whatever warped integrity it may contain.

Then, as we are straggling, as only families trudging over an expanse of soft sand can, heading for the pier hoping to find somewhere for a midday meal, I’m beset by an idea.

We’re now sitting at the corner table of Captain Nemo’s Kitchen waiting for our order to come. The idea has come into focus. I’m using the back of a printout of an old e-mail I found in my jacket pocket to make these notes on.

Some of you might find it relevant to know that the e-mail is from the curator, Gavin Wade. It’s an invitation to present work in an exhibition called ‘Strike’. Gavin would like the work of the willing artist to be a response to the following two questions:

How does/could/would the withdrawal of art affect the world?

Does the answer to the question reveal ways that art can affect the world or strike a blow on the structures of the world?

This is my answer, in the rather knowing and arch tones of an artist’s statement.

PENKILN BURN ARTIST STATEMENT 28

I’ve made something. I’m proud of what I’ve made. And for a price I’m willing to sell it to you. What I’ve made is a commitment and, because I’m an artist, what I’ve made is also an artwork. The name of this artwork is The commitment to give away 40 bunches of daffodils to total strangers every spring for the rest of my life.

And the price is £5,000.

Irony aside, I like this idea of making a commitment that can then be a commodifiable artwork. It stretches something. For it to work there may have to be some sort of agreement in writing between me and the art lover. Clauses may be included like ‘If a spring passes without the commitment being honoured the work of art is dissolved.’

Of course the investor in this work will be free to resell the work for whatever sum he or she feels fit. They can donate it to charity or bequeath it to the nation in their will. As long as the current owner fulfils the annual commitment the work will still exist.

Our order arrives. Sallie and I struggle to persuade Tiger to eat what she ordered.

‘You won’t get any ice cream unless you eat two more of the chicken nuggets.’

‘But Dad, yesterday you let Bluebell not eat her fish fingers and she still got ice cream.’

‘That was yesterday.’

And while Sallie disappears to the lavatory and I’m momentarily lost in thoughts about how does/could/would the withdrawal of art affect the world, Flint, our youngest has climbed on to the table and thrown his plate of kid’s portion burger, chips and side salad on the floor. Sallie returns as I’m still trying to rearrange the chips on his plate to look as if nothing untoward has happened while I was left in sole charge of the children.

‘I’ve been thinking, Bill. You know that heart and two names written in growing daffodils on the embankment on the A12 as we were driving through Essex yesterday.’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, maybe you should announce the result of your ‘Is God a Cunt?’ poll using that method.’

‘What, you mean plant daffodil bulbs in the autumn so come the spring they bloom and spell out “God is a Cunt” or “God is not a Cunt”?’

‘Yes, at least that way it won’t be painted over by whoever it is whose job it is to paint over your graffiti. And it will be there year after year after year.’

‘I like that.’

Roll over Jenny Holzer, tell Bob and Roberta the news.

A few hours later.

Back at our holiday let. We’ve watched the news about the Queen Mum’s death. We’ve put the children to bed, Sallie is reading The Red Tent. I return Neal Brown’s call.

‘Hello.’

‘Hi Neal, it’s Bill. Got your message about prices and things. I’ve got this idea …’

‘Yes Bill.’ And I tried to explain it to him but I stumbled over my lines. It didn’t come out as succinctly as I put it before.

‘Bill, don’t you think that they should be paying you so that its you who gives out the daffodils, not them?’

‘No Neal, you don’t get it. Giving out the daffodils is the good bit. That’s what they are buying. If it was the other way round it would be like going into a travel agency, paying for a holiday but instead of you going off to Tenerife or the Seychelles the travel agent gets to go.’

‘OK. I might possibly understand that bit, given time. But why would anybody pay £5,000 to you so they can go out and give away 40 bunches of daffodils when they can just go and do it anyway? What’s to stop them?’

‘Nothing. And I would heartily encourage anybody to go out giving away bunches of daffs. You don’t have to be a Prague student from 1968 to get the buzz.’

‘So …?’

‘Look Neal, what they would be buying off me is the commitment thing.’

‘But I imagine they might be able to make their own commitment, without the help of Bill Drummond. A commitment is worth less if it is not made oneself.’

‘You are probably right.’

‘Probably right? It seems to be a fundamental flaw in your whole thought process.’

‘I’m willing to take that risk. I’ve a tendency to ignore the fundamental flaw in most of my endeavours.’

‘Does it pay off?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Bill, I may be wrong, but I think it is unlikely anyone is going to pay £5,000 for a commitment Bill Drummond has made to give away 40 bunches of daffodils to total strangers every spring.’

‘Yeah I know, but I still like the idea of it. The idea of trying to sell it. The idea that the only thing that keeps this work of art alive is a bond of trust. I mean they could pay me the five thousand quid and then one year only give away 39 bunches of daffs. And that’s it. The artwork doesn’t exist any more. And it will be only them that knows it. Whatever agreement is signed by me and the art lover and is now framed and hanging proudly on their wall will signify nothing because in reality it’s all down to an act of faith. Faith. Remember faith? The power of faith in the most ludicrous of …’

‘Anyway Bill, what about the two framed pieces in the exhibition? Do you or do you not want to sell them?’

‘If anybody buys my commitment thing they can have those thrown in. They can also get a lifetime supply of The Daffodils pamphlet.’

‘You’re a generous man, Bill …’

‘And I may even turn this conversation and how the idea evolved on the beach at Lowestoft into a pamphlet. They can have a lifetime supply of that as well. And a couple of those blocks of oak that I carve out to be used as stands for these pamphlets … Neal, I’ll have to stop there. I can hear Flint calling out upstairs. I’ll have to go and see what he wants.’

‘OK.’

‘I’ll talk to you next week.’

‘Goodbye.’

‘Goodbye.’

Flint wanted his Bob the Builder tape turned over.

WARNING: Some of the above conversation has been fictionalised as a device in order to get certain ideas across as succinctly as possible.