Pete Doherty RIP
Finally the news his legions of fawning fans have been dreading and a pack of tabloid wolves predicting and probably secretly hoping for too. Pete Doherty is dead. Well, ok, only through the provocative eyes of an artist. We've seen the Babyshambles' leader in a state of far gone and out, cross-eyed dishevelment over the years, but never as bad as the deceased, diseased corpse captured by a Scottish painter in a new series of works. Peter Howson's collection of six oils went on-show in Glasgow last week and really do push the envelope of bad taste, let alone the infinite, timeless ‘what is art' debate.
Famethrowa is reminded here of Daniel Edwards' gratuitous, life-sized "Monument to Pro-Life: The Birth of Sean Preston" statue of Britney Spears, which went on display at a gallery in New York in 2006. Hiding behind the camouflage of popular culture commentary, such pieces inevitably command enormous media coverage, propelling them into a stratosphere otherwise unimaginable. Edwards described his sculpture as a "beautiful woman...in the middle of a beautiful pregnancy", dressing it up in all sorts of language and issues to disguise his more obvious motivation. There are many beautiful pregnant women he could have used, not all of them famous, obviously.
Howson is perhaps different in that he is already an artist of some note and acclaim and says the Doherty canvases reflect his own battle with drink and drugs. "Me wanting to paint him dead was pointing the finger at him and saying 'You can influence a whole generation'. He could, if he wanted to, become the right kind of hero", he noted. Meanwhile, Pete's people seem unimpressed by the work, somehow perplexed as to how Howson gained such an insight into his subject. "We have not seen the drawings and I don't see how Peter knows that much about Pete's lifestyle", they said. Which, given his position of smashed tabloid demi-God, seems like the most absurd observation of all.
Today's Famethrowa's
New: Tricky "Slow"
Old: Pet Shop Boys "Left To My Own Devices"
