Fuckart & Pimp

Fuckart & Pimp was a media hoax conceived by Alex Chappel and David C West in April 1998 which subjected London's Decima gallery to worldwide media attention and became a British front page newspaper sensation, as well as featuring on national television. The show was originally presented as a real event and managed to dupe many national newspapers in the UK before being revealed as a hoax.

Beginning

The show "Fuckart & Pimp" was conceived by Alex Chappel and freelance reporter David C. West. An initial press release was sent out in April 1998 to all the newspapers and media describing the concept show, to open on 17 April: "Fuckart and Pimp" featured a Canadian artist named Angela Marshall. The gallery (the Pimp) prostitutes the artist (the Whore), and the buyer (the Punter) has to consummate the sale of a painting by performing a sexual act with Angela. It was billed as "a stark comment on the world of contemporary art", and the show would "enable both the punter and Angela to fully understand the workings of the curator-artist relationship". photographs were encouraged, "A small picture will cost £25 and require oral sex; a medium-size picture is full sex, at £50 and for a large painting at £75, 'anything kinky'".

Media assault

That same day, from 9 p.m. onwards, the Decima gallery became besieged by press reporters. Everyone from the tabloids to ITN arrived, and as they were all expecting to see an art show, one was staged. Angela Marshall arrived to the glare of lenses, "squeezed into a nine year old's leopard print leotard (she aspires to be 'in her twenties') and sporting a red rhinestone dog collar, hat, gloves, torn black stockings, topped by a blond wig and dark sunglasses", as The Scotsman reported.[1]

The crowds stayed away, "possibly deterred by the ranks of camera crews and reporters gathered outside the gallery", as The Guardian speculated. The reason for them not materialising, however, was the fact that none ever existed to begin with; thus, to curb the media hunger, a punter was invented in the form of "someone calling himself Mark Childs and claiming to be a buyer".

As The Scotsman put it, "Under a dim red light bulb, a man and two women - the second being the artist's Scottish 'assistant' Jessica Konopka - thrashed about on a dirty mattress in a pathetic pantomime copulation". On London Tonight, Mark Childs could be seen leaving the gallery with lipstick-smeared face, carrying a digitally blurred painting. The reason why the painting was digitally blurred is because it bore the lipstick scrawled slogan 'Media Cunts'.

A counter sabotage that fuelled much of the coverage was Southwark council's letter presented in full view of the cameras, 'warning that the property appeared to be being used for sexual entertainment, and that the show's curator may have committed an offence. If the exhibition continued, the gallery would be risking prosecution. This was on the evidence of the eyewitness reports of the undercover council officer who paid five pounds to watch the act through a spy hole, and was reported by The Scotsman as saying 'she's still wearing the G-string but he's got all his kit off and they're definitely at it.'[1]

'Nick', as he was called in the article, publicly issued a warning for obscenity. Despite the insistence that the warning would not hinder the show continuing over the weekend, the pinnacle of the event had been reached and it did not continue.

The following day, 18 April, nearly every paper reported on the event, some skeptical as to its authenticity; it was only The Daily Telegraph that actually caught on with the headline 'Hoaxers play to the gallery with sex and art show,' with a sub heading 'Tom Leonard reports on the elaborate and bizarre activities of two publicity-seekers'. 'Faking it in the name of art' gave a brief synopsis of the previous lengthier stories with the small inclusion of a quote: 'yesterday show organiser David West admitted, "It was a hoax...a charade."'[2] The nationwide press were reluctant to follow up the original story with the truth, and potentially suffer embarrassment, thus, outside of the UK many were ignorant of the fact that it was a hoax.


References

  1. 1 2 The Scotsman, 18 April 1998
  2. ↑ The Sunday Mirror, 19 April 1998
  • The Scotsman,18 April 1998
  • The Sunday Sun,21 April 1998

Further References

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