davidfagan.co.uk

Two short unrelated posts

// March 26th, 2010 // Arts, Wee Politics

Last night I entered the North Lanarkshire Council chambers at 4pm for what I knew would be a long and difficult meeting. However, I wasn’t quite prepared for just how long it would be.

On the agenda was the closure of four primary schools and two nurseries. All of the primary schools had high rates of underoccupancy, a problem which exists throughout the council, with some 8,000 spaces in our schools. In the current economic climate and with future budget cuts looming, a difficult decisions to close had to be taken. The public gallery was filled with parents who were understandably angry about the closure of their local schools and the loss of the traditions within those schools. In the main, these parents conducted themselves in a dignified way. I wish I could say the same for the SNP councillors who had decided to use their pain as a way to advance the SNP, both at a local and national level. There was much grandstanding and playing to the audience. I am sure that, in those councils where the SNP are in control and making similarly difficult decisions, Labour councillors will be doing the same. However, such an approach ultimately does a disservice both to the parents involved and to mature politics.

I have to say, mature politics wasn’t much in evidence. Roll call vote followed roll call vote, not just for the school closures, which was fair enough, but for the plethora of motions over which our council has absolutely no control; minimum pricing for alcohol, maximum class sizes, the independence referendum….and on….and on……and on…..until, the meeting finally finished in a tired slump at 12.10 in the morning.

Now, what was that unrelated post? Ah yes, Jack Vettriano, like him or loath him? This seems to be a hot topic of debate. Many years ago I graduated from the Drawing & Painting Department of Glasgow School of Art. I promptly gave up drawing and painting having come to the conclusion that I wasn’t really that good at it. Many of the people who were my contemporaries, either as students or as lecturers have engaged in this debate. Peter Howson, who has to some extent suffered a similar, elitist backlash to that endured by Vettriano, has defended the artist, saying the elite really have a fear of him. Sandy Moffat, who was a lecturer in D&P when both Howson and I attended is less supportive, saying Vettriano’s work is “badly conceived soft porn”.

So, what do I think? Well, I instinctively reel against the type of elitism and snobbery that Howson reacts to. Indeed, in the case of Howson, I think this has acted against an artist who will in the future be seen (along with Stephen Campbell and Alison Watt) as one of the great Scottish painters of the second half of the 20th century. However, I am afraid that I am much more in sympathy with Sandy Moffat. Vettriano’s work leaves me completely cold. It really is chocolate box art of the worst sort. For me it lacks expression, vitality and does not enrich my life in the slightest way.

What to you think?