Moogee the Art Dog: Biting the hand that feeds?

Abstract: Drawing on a history of artist/cartoonists including Ad Rienhardt , Saul Steinberg, Pablo Helguera and David Shrigley the cartoons of Moogee The Art Dog examine the contemporary art world in a disruptive and transgressive way. Particularly the current methodology of art school education and its new pedagogy based on ideas rather than skills based traditional media. By operating outside the academic world through online blogs and cartoons in various forums including Artists Newsletter , Axis online and Arts Hub the cartoon persona enables a destabilisation of current academic practice whilst concurrently living within its hallowed walls. This strategy sometimes giving arise to an uneasy dichotomy. Operating on the edge of traditional research this interventionist and oppositional stance produces a range of absurd and subversive outcomes and in some cases criticises the actual procedures and social norms of research as currently configured in the U.K. However it also enables a forensic dissection of the fashionable and sometimes absurd operations within the international art world and current art schools In research terms the work has precedents including a recent Phd by Mark Staff Brandl (http://www.markstaffbrandl.com/press-images/BrandlPhD_images.html) based on Comic Art and the output of Pablo Helguera (http://pablohelguera.net/) as part of a wider cross-disciplinary portfolio. Utilising humour and sarcasm Moogee the Art Dog creates a third-space between research and drawing which explores the political and financial agendas behind Institutional operations. The presentation will discuss the cartoons in relation to the institutional art world and education using specific images to draw out the political dimension of acting inside and outside said institutions. It will also link the practice of cartooning to research in a humorous and possibly thought-provoking way then again it may notit might just be funny. Keywords: Cartoons, Humour, Comic Art, Transgressive, Political Art, Art Institutions, Jokes, Humour, Scribble.

Shaun Belcher is a prolific artist whose practice encompasses photography, painting, drawing, poetry and song writing. We will focus here on his cartoons that are visible both on Saatchi Online and more extensively on his website.

Belcher frequently posts his doodles on his blog, which thus functions like a diary. They retrace his mood, his frustrations with the arts scene or his views on the art world with a deadpan humour. His drawings are a mixture between comics, scribbles and caricatures and are made with an unhesitating black pen. The message is straightforward and clear. In some of his cartoons such as Give me the Turner Prize, I am as shit as anyone, his slang vocabulary as well his definitive statements can have something moving and aggressive at the same time as if distant remnants of teenage hood. They reveal an unsettled state of mind and tell disarmingly touching and droll stories.

His ironic and shameless comments on the art scene are indeed serious and make him at times sound desperately ambitious and direct. For instance I am a pretentious 25 year old with no fucking skills but by networking, crawling, by doing voluntary works in a gallery I now have a small foothold on the art world By talking about his experience, he brings up questions that any artist might ask himself: How can I be visible as an artist in a saturated art scene? Can I make a living from my work? How can I network even more than I currently do? Even though his works refer a lot to very English contemporary art events such as the Turner Prize or the Nottingham art scene, they can apply to every artist striving to succeed and to be recognized.

Shaun Belcher was born in Oxford in 1959. He is currently living in Nottingham and is now a multimedia lecturer at Trent University, freelance web designer and practicing digital artist.

To see more of his work registered on Saatchi Online click here, and visit the artists own website, http://www.shaunbelcher.com

VICTORIA CHAINE MENDRZYK

Victoria Chaine Mendrzyk graduated with an MA Curating Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art, a BA in Fine Art and History of Art from Goldsmiths College, University of London and a BA in Philosophy from University of Paris X, Nanterre. After being for 2 years the Gallery Manager of Laure Genillard Gallery, she now works as a free-lance contemporary art guide for private and corporate groups in Londons museums and leading contemporary art galleries. For more information about her guided tours, please visit www.catil.co.uk

Published on 08-02-2010