The news that LA art scenester Mike Kelly just topped himself led me to wonder whether in ten years time he’d make anyone’s list of best ever anti-art suicides. Was his death a resolute ‘NO’ to capitalist exploitation? Or was it as tedious and pathetic as the suicide of Kurt Cobain? I’ll leave you to judge that one and give you instead my top 10 suicides. Since Kelly founded the bands Destroy All Monsters (who I saw in London in the late-seventies after he’d left the group) and Poetics (with John Miller and Tony Oursler), I’m including musicians in this alongside those involved in more visual and literary forms of anti-art.
- Ray Johnson – a pop and correspondence anti-artist. Ray makes number one in my list because although I never met him, I did have a very minor correspondence with Johnson about 25 years ago. So there’s a small personal connection and we all know nepotism rules in the art and anti-art world. ‘New York’s most famous unknown artist’ drowned himself off Long Island in 1995 – some say it was a final work of performance art.
- Ann Quin – a 1960s British experimental novelist who did many things before and better than her now more famous contemporary B. S. Johnson (he topped himself by slitting his wrists while lying in a warm bath shortly after Quin’s summer 1973 death). Although Quinn’s first novel Berg (1964) made an impact, by the time she drowned herself, her critical stock had dwindled. Like Ray Johnson, she swam out to sea – but into the English Channel from Brighton’s Palace Pier, rather than the North Atlantic.
- Arthur Cravan – was a dadaist who specialised in boasting and reinventing himself. Among other stunts, he fought world boxing champion Jack Johnson drunk, and was quickly knocked out. In 1918 Cravan disappeared sailing a boat in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Mexico and is presumed to have drowned. His rather ambiguous suicide set the tone for the deaths of later artists such as Bas Jan Ader (who was lost at sea in the North Atlantic in 1975). For me death at sea is the best way to go (it’s oceanic), but having given you three of these I’ll move on to lesser forms of suicide.
- Donny Hathaway – is probably best known for his duets with Roberta Flack but his solo work constitutes some of the classiest soul made in the 1970s. Despite success as a singer and songwriter, Hathaway demonstrated to the likes of Herman Brood that the best way to end it all is by throwing yourself into the street from the glittering heights of an exclusive hotel. In Hathaway’s case this was from floor 15 of the Essex House Hotel in New York. Hathaway appears to have been suffering from schizophrenia before his death. His funeral was conducted by the Reverend Jesse Jackson.
- Jacques Vaché – was a friend of Andre Breton and thus French surrealism’s most famous suicide. He didn’t really do much but maintain an attitude of indifference and disdain towards the world. Vaché killed himself by taking an overdose of opium, and thus blazed a trail for punk rockers like Darby Crash of Los Angeles band The Germs (who deliberately took an overdose of heroin in 1980).
- Graham Bond – was in at the start of the British blues boom of the 1960s, but he is inevitably included here because he appeared in Gonks Go Beat, an unbelievably bad British movie that Mike Kelly saw on late-night TV somewhere and wanted to see again because he couldn’t quite believe what he’d been viewing. Via a mutual friend I was asked if I could help Kelly locate this item (this was before it was reissued on DVD). I found a bootleg version and passed on the information about where and how to buy it. Returning to Bond, his career basically spiralled downhill from the late-sixties onwards with this decline fuelled by drink, drugs and involvement in the occult. I picked up a typical story about Bond looking for money when I interviewed one time New English Library (NEL) editor Laurence James back in the 1990s, although I don’t seem to have included it in the published version of my conversation. Bond turned up at the NEL offices one day demanding money because somehow a photograph of him had found its way into a Hells Angels magazine published by the company (who’d thought this was a picture of a hells angel and had not realised it was in fact an image of a musician). Bond pretended to be outraged and claimed this mishap would ruin his public reputation. James gave Bond a few quid and the musician went away a happy man because he’d scored enough money to buy whatever drugs he needed that day. In 1974 Bond did the decent thing and jumped in front of a tube train at Finsbury Park Station in north London.
- Herman Brood – is well known for songs like 1978’s Rock & Roll Junkie (which includes the line: “and when I do my suicide for you I hope you miss me too…”). in later life this Dutch rocker swapped pop excess for a career as a not particularly interesting painter. Sick from prolonged drug use and unable to kick his habit, in 2001 Brood leapt to his death from the rooftop of the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel. When I heard about this the first thought that popped into my head was that I’d thought Brood’s leather jeans looked ugly and uncool when I’ d seen him perform with his band Wild Romance in London in the late-seventies.
- Adrian Borland – is someone I almost have a personal connection to, since he knew a number of my friends. In the late-eighties I spotted Borland posing outside a London rock venue. He was once in a seriously obscure band called Rat Poison (with a friend of mine in fact) although he later falsely claimed his first group was The Outsiders. As far as I’m aware Rat Poison only ever played one gig at New Malden Town Hall (in south west London). When I came across Borland he was obviously waiting to be recognised, and he gave me a huge smile as I walked over to him. “I know you!” I said before pausing dramatically. “You was in Rat Poison!” Borland’s jaw dropped, he’d lost his rock star composure but eventually managed to blurt: “I’m Adrian Borland. I’ve gone solo now but I used to be in The Sound.” “Never heard of ’em mate!” I shot back before stomping off leaving my victim completely bemused. When Borland ended it all by jumping in front of a train in 1999 I wasn’t surprised – he seemed to have been in the rock business for the wrong reasons. He was more interested in fame than music and that was bound to result in him becoming very frustrated. Of course, Borland only makes this list because I like to flatter myself I made a small contribution towards his death!
- Wendy O. Williams – was the singer in the dire American hardcore punk/metal band The Plasmatics. I always liked the idea of Williams far more than the music her band made. She’d started her career in the entertainment business by performing in sex shows, and never really moved away from that since she was usually topless on stage. Frustrated at her inability to break into the mainstream, in 1998 Williams went into the woods near her home and blew her brains out with a gun.
- Guy Debord – this lettriste and situationist claimed that he wrote less than most writers but drank more than most drinkers. Little surprise then that in 1994 Debord shot himself because he could no longer bear the pain of the illnesses brought on by his excessive consumption of alcohol. Debord only limps in at number 10 because a more interesting dadaist suicide appears to be a completely fictional character. Julien Torma allegedly wandered ill-clad into the Tyrolian mountains at the age of 30 to end it all, and was never seen again. I like to laugh along with Torma’s aphorism: “Perfection is mediocrity. Only excess is beautiful.” Debord by way of contrast, seems to have taken this absurd joke seriously.
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!
Comments
Comment by Uncle Ben on 2012-02-02 14:37:44 +0000
Art is dead, burn the museums baby!
Comment by Lester Bangs on 2012-02-02 15:38:19 +0000
You don’t mention Ian Curtis and it could be argued that he was even more pathetic than Kurt Cobain. Sad tossers both of course!
Comment by Mister Fluffy on 2012-02-02 16:19:06 +0000
Sarcasm is a dying art…. Did it commit suicide?
Comment by Suicide Watch on 2012-02-02 16:44:13 +0000
What about Don Cornelius? And are they gonna play Shotgun by Junior Walker at his funeral?
Comment by Aunt May on 2012-02-02 18:35:09 +0000
And Van Gogh too! and he smelled
Comment by Manhattan Brickie on 2012-02-02 22:33:57 +0000
Carl Andre committed suicide by proxy – the scumbag threw his wife out of the window!
Comment by Suicide Girl on 2012-02-02 23:48:52 +0000
I’ve been dying to meet you ever since I read this blog – and now there’s blood all over my keyboard because I slashed my wrists! I hope you find blood and death erotic!
Comment by Irvine Walsh on 2012-02-03 02:13:11 +0000
This is totally sick! I love it!
Comment by kung fu zombie on 2012-02-03 14:30:00 +0000
I was a sex addict until I discovered death – and now I know that being a stiff is better than getting stiff!
Comment by Joshua Compston on 2012-02-03 16:00:58 +0000
I’m disappointed that none of the YBAs have topped themselves yet – they all ought to do it, even if they’re a bit late getting in on the act. I’m one of the few from that crowd who had the decency to die young… and I was a gallerist not an artist.
Comment by Giovanni Dadomo on 2012-02-03 16:47:49 +0000
Isn’t about time all the members of every goth and death metal band ever who are still alive topped themselves. I thought those bozos were supposed to be obsessed with death?
Comment by Gerry King on 2012-02-03 17:46:59 +0000
TERRIFIC AS ALWAYS MR HOME.
Comment by Gruppe M on 2012-02-03 18:32:45 +0000
We tried to kill Mike kelley right after the suicide of Cobain in 1994.
It was a conceptual art piece.
Now he did it. Artt.
Comment by Gruppe M on 2012-02-03 18:35:18 +0000
see as a proof SUPERBIERFRONT Issue 1994
on one of the last pages…
this is a great intervention between real artists
like us GRUPPE M and Mike Kelley.
Comment by mistertrippy on 2012-02-03 18:45:15 +0000
Not sure I have that issue (and even if I did I don’t read German anyway)…. but I’ll take your word for it Mario…. And non-German readers can check out a Gruppe M piece in English via my Serpent’s Tail anthology Mind Invaders…..
Comment by Gruppe M on 2012-02-03 19:17:47 +0000
the issue with Curt Cobain on the cover, obvious.
Comment by Gruppe M on 2012-02-03 19:18:43 +0000
You take my word, Stewart. Do words count?
Comment by Monty Cantsin on 2012-02-03 19:48:04 +0000
I’m also reading the amazing Louis Ginzberg’s Legends of the Jews and being amused with the fact that so many twenty century ideas (and vague data) of conspiracy came from nineteen century literature, or earlier.
Comment by The Real Monty (Cantsin) on 2012-02-03 23:04:03 +0000
Death is not true!
Comment by Saluther on 2012-02-04 15:24:35 +0000
There is no real monty….. everything under capitalism is fake, even death!
Comment by Betty Boolean on 2012-02-04 16:36:09 +0000
There was a Full Monty though, i seen it on telly. It was shit
Comment by mistertrippy on 2012-02-04 17:31:36 +0000
I heard it was some Chippendales rip-off with male strippers…. I’m not into The Chippendales so I never bothered to see it….
Comment by bullshitdetector on 2012-02-12 09:58:45 +0000
Your usual rubbish, please write more about your mother, she had a much more interesting life than you do, you’re such a sad name dropper, all made up of course, so sad.
Comment by bullshitdetector on 2012-02-12 10:33:16 +0000
Your writing on the 60s is spot on though, more on that would be most welcome.
Comment by mistertrippy on 2012-02-12 14:27:47 +0000
Thanks, and did I ever tell you about “The Day I Met God”?
Comment by bullshitdetector on 2012-02-16 07:20:52 +0000
No but please do, I bet he lied about the band he was in, aswell as all the rest!
Comment by mistertrippy on 2012-02-16 15:05:42 +0000
“The Day I Met God” is a song by Adam and the Ants, you can find it on their first album. That’s why I put it in quote marks, that’s one way in which people indicate something is title – otherwise they might use italics.
And aside from sniggering at the trolls I’ve also been laughing my ass off at some of the attempts to place link spam in the comments here. There follow just two examples of stuff my spam filter prevented from being posted on 10 Greatest Anti-Art Suicides:
- “My spouse and I are having our very first child and I found this write-up particularly valuable! Thanks so much for discussing!”
- “I think that what you said was very reasonable. But, think about this, suppose you typed a catchier post title? I mean, I don’t wish to tell you how to run your blog, however suppose you added something that grabbed people’s attention? I mean 10 Greatest Anti-Art Suicides is a little vanilla. You should peek at Yahoo’s home page and see how they create article headlines to get people to click…”
Comment by Michael Roth on 2012-06-24 20:31:30 +0000
My favorite is Jacques Rigault, although I am disappointed that he did not make the list. This is tempered with the inclusion of Arthur Craven, every hipster’s favorite “suicide.” Also, I am glad to see that Ann Quin made the list. You do not see many women making it onto top ten lists and her inclusion is truly admirable.