Art Sex Music Page 13

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  A new year had begun – 1973 – but it wasn’t a positive start, with the uncertainty of Les’s future hovering over me like a dark cloud. The frenzied activities of our involvement in the Fanfare for Europe Festival were a welcome distraction and kept us busy, with setting up our work in the group show at the Arts Centre and installing in the foyer of Ferens Art Gallery all the necessary props of desk, chairs and filing cabinet that we needed for the inaugural presentation of ‘The Ministry of Antisocial Insecurity’. This was our centrepiece for the Fanfare for Europe.

  The MAI was more than a pun on the words ‘Ministry of Social Security’. It wasn’t just about commenting on a system regarded by those who used it as far from social or secure. It was fundamentally a work based on questionnaires specifically intended to provoke debate about social and cultural values and the value of art and Life as Art. MAI represented our opposition to defining people and art, and was an ironic, cynical statement in the form of a playful twist on the bureaucracy of government form-filling, filing systems and qualification criteria that we knew so well from applying for our Arts Council grant and our time signing on. The various forms which had officially stamped each of our workless days and defined us as unemployed, thereby qualifying us to receive benefit money, were reworked into mock questionnaires and application forms for artistic subsidy, artistic classification, concluding with (MAIps4), the (non-) payment slip claimants were given to sign as a receipt for ‘NOTHING’ – well, for those who produced ‘NO ART’. If the applicant did nothing creative, ‘NO ART’ was rubber-stamped next to each listed creatively unproductive day, and ‘NOTHING’ was stamped in the subsidy payment box. To get to that stage, people had to complete the other forms, first determining their ‘Artistic Status’ through the (MAIsf2) form, on which they answered questions about Dada, what was art, Miss Gateway, and chose their status from many categories: Art Lover, Art Critic, Artist, Art Object, Member of the Public, Philistine, Racing Cyclist, Groupie, Connoisseur, Common Marketeer and Other (to be specified). We’d also included alongside that list (and upside down) part of the artist status section of the Arts Council application form that we’d completed to obtain the very grant that made the MAI possible. Form 1, perversely to be completed after form 2, was the ‘Art Claim Form’ (MAIcf1). This parodied some of the Arts Council grant questions we’d faced – but with the difference being that the MAI grant currency was specified as art itself, not money. And those whose application was deemed ‘successful art’ were given a choice of ‘artistic’ currency. Questions such as ‘Why can’t your art support itself?’ and ‘Have you tried other ways to get art money?’ were references to the struggles we had in funding our work and the process involved in applying for and receiving government funding. In keeping with all institutional procedures, we provided an appeal form for anyone who wished to object to the MAI decision. Unlike the unyielding social security appeal system, MAI presented positive hope, clearly stating, ‘All artistic appeals upheld’. We had a steady flow of applicants, setting the ball rolling with COUM members and Fizzy doing his best to usher people to the desk.

  9 January 1973

  COUM and Company arrived in Rotterdam at 9.30 and were theaterising in the streets at 12.30 … COUM do something different every time.

  MAI was only part of our contribution to Fanfare for Europe. We had to work around the theme of European cultural events, so we also provided something more immediate and approachable, playing improvised music, dancing and making sculptures in the centre of Hull and encouraging people to participate. We also took inspiration from the very British ‘Bonny Baby Competition’, giving it a more appropriate and inclusive title of ‘Baby of Europe’. Me, Gen as a baby in the pram, and Fizzy as a clown, headed for the streets of Rotterdam via North Sea Ferries from Hull. It was my first trip abroad and my first stay in a hotel.

  I was dressed as a ‘Dutch Girl’, with my hair in pigtails decorated with long polka-dot ribbons, a colourful, short, chequered, low-cut dress and a push-up bra that found great favour with Jeff Nuttall. ‘Oooh, Cosey, you’re a comely lass,’ he grinned from ear to ear as his eyes fixed on my boobs.

  9 February 1973

  Les got 18 months, I can’t bear to think of him being in prison. I hope he writes so that we can visit him soon. Lee and Baz got borstal at Queen’s discretion. Jack Pepper? … We bought the ‘Daily Mail’ with Les’s case in it. Jack Pepper got 9 months. I cried a long time tonight for Les.

  Les was gone and I was devastated at losing him. He’d been with me my whole life and without him Hull felt like a stark, unfriendly place. I needed plans for me and Gen to move to London to pick up pace. It was awful seeing Les in prison; he didn’t fit. But he was self-effacing, never showing any sign of feeling sorry for himself on visits or in his letters; he just asked me to make sure his mum and Baz were OK. And I did – I’d visit his Mum regularly. I knew he was struggling but he didn’t want anyone to worry about him. I knew he’d attempted suicide when he was fifteen and went voluntarily, with his mother’s consent, for psychiatric care into De La Pole Hospital. ‘I lived out One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in there,’ he told me years later.

  I continued working at the chess factory. It helped cover the cost of visiting Les and I managed to save something for our planned move to London. Gen continued with his frequent travels, visiting artist friends. With just the two of us now living in Prince Street, I felt quite isolated and lonely when he was away, and somewhat excluded, but accepted and understood that, for us to take COUM further, Gen’s times away from home to hook up with people were necessary in order to make things happen. Besides, he thrived on it and the bookings and opportunities that increased as a result.

  It’s no stretch to say that by 1973 mail art had played a vital role in bringing together a very active and diverse network of artists dedicated to exchanging and collaborating in visual art, music, publishing and performance. There was a real cross-pollination of great talents and exceptional people, some of whom, like us, embraced the concept of Global Infantilism, which fitted nicely with our approach to art as fun, unpretentious and accessible.

  Our most prolific mail art exchanges were with Robin Klassnik, who we’d met through the Groupvine register and the FILE artist contact list. We built up a great relationship with him and stayed at his Martello Street SPACE Studio a number of times, including prior to setting off on a Global Infantilism trip to Belgium for the Open Theatre Festival at Leuven University. It turned out to be a crazy, crazy time. Everyone was off the rails. We performed in collaboration with Robin, all of us enclosed in a box, sawing and smashing up a statue of the Virgin Mary and throwing out the pieces, then performing a cycling piece, hurtling round and round in cynical honour of the renowned Belgian cyclist Eddy Merckx.

  But the craziest times were being around, and collaborating as, The Revolutionary Spirit with the insanely wonderful art performance duo the Kipper Kids, Harry and Harry Kipper – or, to give them their full names, Brian Routh, who was married to Nina Sobell at the time (and later married the artist Karen Finley), and Martin Rochus Sebastian von Haselberg (who is now married to Bette Midler). They caused absolute mayhem on the ferry as they frantically ran around in ‘Harry Kipper’ character and full identical costumes, complete with big clumpy boots and joke bald skullcaps. They looked like mutant versions of Desperate Dan. Being such tall, strapping and stroppy blokes, they were scary, imposing figures and freaky when they made the most raucous and weird guttural noises at other people and each other in a kind of Kipper Kid language. It was one momentous ferry ride of wet-knickers laughter.

  I saw quite a lot of them after that trip. Their work was uncompromisingly crude, surreal, astounding and outstanding. They became notorious for being gross and dangerous, particularly their ‘Boxing’ piece, in which one of them boxed himself till he bled while the other acted as referee. It was difficult to watch at times, simply because anything could happen. Their work was at the extreme end of t
he spectrum of Infantilism art, and a far cry from the COUM infantile capers and the pseudo-institution ‘L’Ecole de l’Art Infantile’, formed by Robin, Gen and the artist and poet Opal L. Nations. The launch of L’Ecole was marked by a postcard celebrating the first winners of the ‘BabyCOUMpetition’ in Oxford. Opal ran Strange Faeces Press and published a magazine of poetry, fiction and art under the same name, which was our introduction to its contributors Allen Fisher, John Giorno, Jeff Nuttall, Robin Crozier, Kathy Acker and David Mayor of Beau Geste Press.

  28 May 1973

  Ooh my darling you came home to me and Uncle Bill loved you as I knew he would. I loved and missed you too much.

  Having written to William Burroughs, Gen had received an invitation to visit him if he was in London. He’d given Burroughs (now called Uncle Bill) Robin Klassnik’s phone number as his contact, and was gutted to hear that Uncle Bill had called only to be told Gen wasn’t there – and had been more or less treated as some prankster posing as Burroughs. Gen made a special trip to London to visit Uncle Bill. I didn’t go; I wasn’t invited as it was something Gen wanted and needed to do on his own. I wasn’t that interested in Burroughs and I had a more important appointment of my own – to visit Les in jail and deliver the transistor radio he desperately needed. Keeping it real, as they say. I was so happy for Gen. When he got back, he was ecstatic at finally getting to meet Uncle Bill. He told me little about it. While he was away, I’d been sorting our things out, throwing stuff away and buying old packing trunks ready for when we made the big move.

  *

  Before we left Hull we had our final contact with the Hells Angels. It was heartwarming and most appreciated. Me and Gen had gone to the cinema and were heckled all the way through the film by a whole row of skinheads we’d never met before. When it came time to leave we knew there’d be trouble – they’d threatened us constantly and very loudly. As we passed their row they got up to follow us outside. We were dreading the inevitable beating we’d been persistently promised and wondering if we could find a way out to escape them.

  Then we heard loud voices and scuffles behind us. We turned to see about twelve Hells Angels, some across the aisle and some at each end of the row where the gang had been sat, blocking them from following us out. The Angels stood there, arms folded, bike chains wound around their fists like knuckledusters, and glowering as they warned the gang of lads to stay where they were until they were told they could leave. They were intimidating, to say the least, ready and looking for the least excuse to give any of the gang a good beating. Two of the Angels came up to us and escorted us to the foyer. ‘We heard those cunts giving you shit so we thought we’d see you out safe and sound,’ they said.

  We were touched and extremely grateful for their protection and act of camaraderie.

  *

  Our time in Prince Street was coming to an end. We were at best tolerated, but spat at by the locals and market people. Jim must have hated us painting his building, on top of all the odd visitors we attracted. He wanted us out. ‘I’ll have you outta there!’ he’d shout at us whenever we saw him or he was passing the house.

  Jim spread rumours of us not paying our rent (when we always did) and it wasn’t unusual to see him gathered in a group with his allies, discussing their distaste for us, raising their voices if we were nearby to make sure we heard their nasty comments. One of the group was Fred. He was a strange, tall man with white hair and wore a brown knee-length warehouseman’s overall. He ran the old-fashioned corner shop, selling general goods, tobacco and his handmade sandwiches and hot egg or bacon rolls. We never shopped there, especially after Spydeee came home late one night and saw a mass of scuttling cockroaches streaming under the shop door.

  The police seemed determined to rid Hull of its ‘troublesome elements’, which included us. Many of the people we knew were either facing various charges or were already convicted and serving time: some of the Angels; our peace-loving hippy friend Far Out John, who was in prison for possession of dope; Ray was serving another term for the petty offence of stealing a bottle of milk off someone’s doorstep; Bobo had a spell in borstal and had his two front teeth punched out; and other friends had been busted for dealing and were on remand, facing substantial sentences. We were persistently harassed by the police; they’d move us on whenever we did street actions and they’d stop us in the street to update us on how they’d nicked someone we knew, or visit the house gleefully hinting that we were next on their list for prison. A vindictive female market stallholder who hated us being in Prince Street had gone as far as reporting Spydeee to the police as a possible murder suspect, simply saying that she’d seen scratches on his hands (which were actually from his cat). When Spydeee left the house one morning he was jumped on by two policemen, hustled into a squad car and aggressively questioned at the station, then released without charge. The police intimidation, loss of COUM members, and our increasing collaborations and work with people outside of Hull led us to conclude that it was time to move on. Les’s (now) twenty-seven-month prison sentence had been the last straw for me. Proud as I was of being born in Hull, I no longer loved it there and Hull didn’t appear to love me. It was time to go. A timely phone call from Robin gave us our way out.

  25 June 1973

  Oh what a lovely day! Robin rang up about a studio at Space, Martello Street. We got it! £17.60 a month. Hooray!

  3

  6 July 1973

  There’s nothing more depressing than sitting on your own in an empty house. I’m about to cry … I feel so lonely and lost. I wish Gen were here I really do.

  7 July 1973

  COUM Porridges move to London this very day. Bye Bye Hull we must leave you. Sad. Boo! Hoo! Bye everyone!

  It had taken me and Gen days to pack our belongings into Doris. Gen didn’t do the move with me; he’d gone to London on COUM business. It was left to me, with Biggles as my driver, to get all our worldly goods, Tremble and three cats to our new home in London.

  The day before I left, I’d had a visit from the local Children of God cult, who’d taken to trying to save us. This particular visit was to inform me there was no hope for me, that I was destined to go to hell – oh, and that they’d loot the house once we’d gone. Nice people. Mum, Grandma and Pam had called, a little sad but happy for me, wishing me farewell and good luck. Fizzy didn’t come round to say goodbye – he was still too upset about us leaving. I spent my last night in Hull feeling terribly lonely and forlorn.

  My first impression of the Martello Street studio was mixed. It was one large room in the basement of the old trouser factory, with iron bars on the windows that looked out on to a brick wall. You could just see London Fields out of the top panes of the filthy windows. There was one cold-water tap with a small washbasin, a prepayment electric meter we had to feed with shilling coins, no form of heating, and a floor so mouldy from damp and dry rot that it gave way underfoot in places as you walked across it. We’d really downsized – from seventeen rooms to one.

  Access to the studio was through the main doors, past a courtyard and down twelve steep steps that had a sharp bend halfway down, leading into a short, narrow passageway covered by a pretty useless roof made of broken plastic sheeting. Whenever it rained, the passage became a shower, with all the water from the leaking roof pouring down – mainly outside our door. The basement area had just two studios and a disused boiler room.

  An Australian artist, Bill Meyer, was our very friendly and helpful neighbour. To my delight I discovered he had a darkroom and screen-printing set-up and he generously helped me by developing my black-and-white films, generating prints and screen-printing posters for us. Out of all the studios throughout the factory, we were the only ‘unqualified’ artists. Even the caretaker, Bruce Lacey, had graduated from the Slade. We were like sewer rats disappearing into the dark underworld while the ‘real’ artists worked towards gallery shows in their naturally lit, airy studios above. We only mixed with a handful of our fellow tenants, like Robin and K
athy, and Jules Baker and Rosie Antrobus.

  Jules and Rosie built the most amazing huge monster inflatables from canvas and latex, including the tentacled Axon monsters for Doctor Who, a 170-foot-long dragon and two twelve-foot-tall wrestlers that helpers would strap to their backs and wrestle with, while Jules and Rosie acted as clown referee and trainer. Jules made Gen a shoulder bag in the shape of a large alien-like vagina, with latex labia teeth and long tentacles all around it. That bag instigated many an interesting conversation as we went shopping and got manhandled by curious admirers – so much so that it would often go to Jules for repair.

  Overall we got the feeling we were looked upon as interlopers by all but a few at Martello Street. The SPACE Studio lease stipulated that no one could live in the rented space but a lot of artists did, building themselves a sleeping area disguised as best they could. We did the same. In the driest corner of the room, farthest from the door, our friend David helped Gen build a large 9×9-foot wooden box with a raised floor and padlocked door. The box bedroom was big enough for the double-mattress-sized beanbag I made for us from strong ship’s canvas and filled with polystyrene granules. It was a good insulator, ideal for our new cold, damp home. We disguised our sleeping nest by putting my office desk on the side that faced the studio door and pinning up various posters and paraphernalia. The other side was hidden by three six-foot-tall glass-fronted haberdashery drawers that me and Fizzy (who was visiting) had sourced from a shop in Mare Street that was closing down.

  They, and the clothes rail we snapped up, were perfect for COUM materials and our clothing. We also got hold of a number of shop dummies and wooden stools to make into Duchamp ‘harps’ for our next project, ‘Marcel Duchamp’s Next Work’, with Paul Woodrow of W.O.R.K.S. That was to be a twelve-piece ‘orchestra’ playing bicycle wheels mounted on wooden stools, based on Duchamp’s ready-made ‘Bicycle Wheel’. With our new headquarters came a new slogan: ‘COUM the greatest human catastrophe since Adam got a hard-on’.