THE HISTORY OF ART

Spoke by Tam Dean Burn in character as Henry Bird

SPOKE

WRIT

I am Henry Bird.
I am your History of Art Teacher.

Even if the former Bill Drummond may claim that I am nothing more than the Ghost of Henry Bird, that exists inside his head. Or even just a fading memory in the head of VAPE SHOP, I am the only real Henry Bird that is ever likely to be your History of Art Teacher. I was born in Northampton in 1909 and I died in Northampton in 2000. I am also the greatest artist you have never heard of...

My Lot – Your Loss.

Anyway...

I have been commissioned by the former Bill Drummond to give you a lecture on the work of The Bleak City Art Movement. Some say that I just lift all my knowledge about the History of Art from what other people have written. I beg to differ... Yes, I might have got the names and dates from what others have written, but it is my understandings of the motivations of those artists and the context their work existed in that is all mine.

Anyway...

This is Part One of my History of...

The Bleak City Art Movement. As to whether there is a Part Two that depends on how much they pay me to deliver my wisdom and insights to you...

The Bleak City Art Movement only existed for the twelve months within the year of 2026.
Known to many just by the name Bleak.
Some may lay claim that there are and were Proto Bleak. As yet it is too early to know if there will be a Post Bleak Movement.
The defining attributes of the Bleak City Art Movement are as follows.
The Art and the Artist are one and the same. As such they are known as an Art/ist.
Thus, not being something like a Marina Abramović who might be described as both the art and the artist.
Although much of the Art/ist of the Bleak City Art Movement might have been created by the unwitting hands of humans, the Art/ists themselves are not human.
But...
The Art/ists of the Bleak City Art Movement only exists as Art/ists when observed by living humans.

The defining qualities of The Bleak Art Movement are...

Their work can never be bought or sold, can never be validated by academia, let alone Art History, except when I am the Art Historian. The reasons for this are, it can only exist as Art while it lies discarded on the pavements and gutters of the Bleak City.

Bleak City is the name given to London by those who love the work of the Bleak City Art Movement.

There are nine major players in the movement. I will attempt to give a brief breakdown on their work and why they are important to these times we are grappling with.

In alphabetical order...

They are...

BIRD SHITE:
Bird Shite must be the most prolific Art/ist in the whole movement. Their work can be found almost everywhere across the Bleak City. That said the standard of their work is not always that high. But if you keep yourself aware, there will be times you will find one that equals, any other work, done by any of the other Art/ists, within the whole Bleak City Art Movement. What also gives the work of BIRD SHITE power is it transience. It can be a work of glory one day, but it only takes a brief shower for all its sheer beauty to be swept away. And by the next day it is lost and gone forever.

CRAK PAVE:
For the former Bill Drummond, it was his daily lurch down the hill, on the pavement to the West side of Shamrock Way, to get to his morning caffeine fix, that he first started becoming aware of the almost mythical beauty of so many of the cracked paving slabs. These slabs had been cracked by folk driving their ever-larger SUVs over the pavement, so they could park them in their driveways. Then after the caffeine had fixed what need fixing, he would trudge back up the hill, but this time on the pavement to the East side of Shamrock Way. It was not long before he began to have his favourite cracked paving slabs. And of course, these were the ones he would make sure he would never step on, but step over. This was done in respect for their beauty. Then he attempted to distil his favourites down to no more than 40. Twenty on the West Side as in on his way down the hill. And the other twenty on the East Side, as in on his way back up the hill. Of course, there were other cracked paving slabs, across the Bleak City, that caught his eye. But he has remained faithful to these forty. It seems Crak Pave work is never done.

CRUSH CAN:
Crush Can almost always improves with age. Not as prolific as Bird Shite, but you can find them in the gutter of almost every street of this Bleak City. And the more crushed it gets the more it oozes its almost mystical presence. For the former Bill Drummond it does not really matter what the original brand of the can was, be that Coke, Pepsi, Red Bull, Monster or any one of a number of Polish beers or high alcohol Ciders.  

DEAD BIKE
Dead Bike is a lot rarer species of Art/ist than the previous three. That said they seem to cluster in certain favoured areas of the Bleak City, always chained to a fence or a bike rack. Some are more tragically beautiful than other. Some the former Bill Drummond will travel halfway across the Bleak City just to see if one particular favourite is still there. The emotional reward to find one still there, after a whole year is like nothing else. As in totally transcending the sadness that haunts them at the same time. “When were they last rode?” “Whatever happened to their rider?” “Will they ever be set free to be ridden again?” “Or does none of that matter because now they are part of The Bleak City Art Movement?”

FAG PACK
Like I have written elsewhere, the whole broken nitro glycerine bulbs craze came and went, but discarded cigarette packets can still be found almost everywhere. More now than ever, even though the percentage of smokers, has fallen in the former Bill Drummond’s lifetime, from over 80% to under 10%.

FALLEN FEATHER
There are some that argue that Fallen Feather is not an Art/ist, but just a feather that is fallen from the wing of a bird. There are others that argue that maybe Fallen Feather is a sub-genre of the Post Bleak yet to come. But for the former Bill Drummond, he cannot pass a feather on a pavement without stopping to wonder where that bird is now and why did its feather fall to the ground. All of which trigger’s emotions like no other work by those that are part of The Bleak City Art Movement.

FOOT
And Foot might be the most mysterious of all the nine Art/ists. Their work is something you can so easily miss if you do not keep eyes on the ground searching every piece of dried concrete around a manhole cover in the pavement. And even then, it is mainly only a hint that they have been there and left their mark.

NANA SKIN
At first, I thought Nana Skin were just about stunt art. As in they existed just so passing people with no interest in The Bleak City Art Movement, might slip up on the banana skin that Nana Skin had left there for them to slip up on. But as these months of 2026 have ripened into Summer, and I have watched Nana Skin shrivel from a fresh yellow to an almost black and dry nothing. As in they were far more than just something attempting to get someone to slip up on as they were on their way to the latest Tate Modern Show. The other thing about Nana Skin, is they are rare, but once you have seen one of their selves, you want to see it every day as it slowly shrivels itself to perfection.

Anyway time to get to the last and first and greatest of all the Art/ists in The Bleak City Art Movement...

SHADOW
Shadow has been here since time began. And will probably still be here when time reaches the end of the line. And Shadow is never the same. Always on the move. Can disappear in seconds and be back again within even less seconds, but different. Its wonder beauty knows no bounds. I know that the images that Hand Held Device takes of Shadow, never do it justice, but they cannot stop themselves. And I am not going to try and stop them. As in stop Hand Held Device.

So that is the end of Part One of what might be my ongoing lecture on The Bleak City Art Movement.