Cape Town Stuckists

Kari Seid is the founder of the Cape Town Stuckists and is the 1st official member of Stuckism in South Africa.

Stuckism is a radical art movement founded in London in 1999 to advance new figurative painting with ideas as the most vital artistic means of addressing contemporary issues.
Stuckism is a rebuttal of the twentieth century development of Modernism, which has resulted in an increasingly fragmented, isolated, material-obsessed and stultifying academia, existing not by virtue of the work but institutional and financial power, flattered by critical acquiescence.
Stuckism regards the foundation of Modernism in art as an opportunity for vision, integrity and communication which has never been fulfilled.
The Stuckists are, therefore, opposed to the current pretensions of so-called Brit Art, Performance Art, Installation Art, Video Art, Conceptual Art, Minimal Art, Body Art, Digital Art and anything claiming to be art which incorporates dead animals or beds - mainly because they are unremarkable and boring.
The name Stuckism was derived, in the best art historical tradition, from an insult, in this case from 1999 Turner Prize Nominee, Tracey Emin, to ex-boyfriend, Billy Childish: "Your paintings are stuck, you are stuck! Stuck! Stuck! Stuck!"
This was quoted in a poem by Billy Childish. Charles Thomson subsequently coined the term Stuckism and proposed joining forces to found a group. The most important ideas behind this impetus are contained in a co-written manifesto, The Stuckists manifesto.
This was followed by a manifesto Remodernism 'towards a new spirituality in art', inaugurating a period in art, culture and society to replace the current futility of Postmodernism. Remodernism provides a framework to include those working in disciplines other than painting (and even outside the arts altogether), who subscribe to the same values as the Stuckists. The Defastenist art group in Ireland have declared themselves a Remodernist group.

STUCKISM is a contemporary figurative painting group which includes sculpture and printmaking, but it is not a 'traditional modern' group - it embraces a wide diversity of style and technical difference, as well as valuing ideas as an integral part of art.