The Never-Ending Suicide Note.
Part 3) The Artist Who Got Smoke Blown Up His Arse.
This is my "Fuck you!" to the uptight world of greedy, jealous, cruel and privileged desperadoes pushing and shoving for their place as they climb up the shitheap. Forgive me if you think my writing is rude or one long whine about poor me, the downtrodden artist, who got ripped off and fucked over. In between hard times I did experience exhilarating achievements and joy.
But that's only a small part of the story I want to tell, the trammels and travails, the obstacles and enemies, the pitfalls and hidden agendas are what I'd like to unveil, expose, explore about being an artist; and to figure out what motivates artists, what's behind a lot of art, how every aspect of artistic endeavor relates to the human condition, good or bad.
Somewhere around June 2020 I was approached by a woman to participate in a project of putting art up in the windows of empty shops in King Street Newtown, to liven-up the place and make some kind of political statement. I was told I was free to paint what I wanted, even be as radical as my passionate nature desired, for Newtown was full of "alternative" types, hippies, anarchists, ferals, rebellious youth in general, and my outlandish cartoon style would go down a treat. In her application for the Sydney City Council grant she even photoshopped some of my famous poster work into shop windows as examples of how the art would look. Her shop mock-ups were extremely eye-catching and it's part of why she got $16,500 to pay eight of us, plus herself for organising it, i.e. $600 for each artist, $200 art materials each, and $10,000 for herself.
She didn't line up the shops before her application and had all hell to find any business willing to let her do it. All the real estate agents with empty shops on King Street either wanted too much money in rent or were too politically conservative to allow radical art on their premises. If she was really serious about the window exhibition she would have used a hunk of the $10,000 she paid herself to rent a pop-up shop for two or three months and an interesting, arresting show within it could have wickedly turned on the King Street alternative-set. It seems that wasn't her main agenda.
She got a few small windows in some cafes to put up a couple of innocuous, safe works, mine she said were too hardcore, offensive to timid restauranteurs, depicting critique of our conservative government, mining, the Hellsong cult and the police, and thus couldn't be placed anywhere. Luckily I had a Plan B, a small gallery attached to a skate-board shop in Darlinghurst, Pass-Port, were eager to exhibit my work, and I arranged a show there for October 2020. Her project didn't eventuate but my "Politics of Survival" installation went ahead confidently, with much hard work and support from my community. My sixteen panel "School for Scoundrels" visual diatribe that I had done for the King Street flop fitted marvelously upon one wall, while all of my anti-Scummo cartoons on adjoining walls completed the exhibition, providing the sharp renegade, anarcho-political flavour which I wanted so adamantly.
On two occasions during 2019 I was asked by the instigators of the SEDITION Festival to meet them at the Tropicana Cafe to discuss my participation in their supposed revolutionary art conclave. The year before, for the first iteration of their "rebellion", while two of my posters were hung in the "Paper Tigers" exhibit at the NAS, a third I had submitted was rejected, or perhaps it was stolen before it even got to the selection committee as I never did see it again. It's called "Garibaldis Bastille Day" and it celebrates the cabaret musical "Failing In Love Again", a melodrama dearly beloved by the feminists particularly. It supported the Violet Roberts and Ray Denning campaigns, two prisoners hard done by at that time and many were militating in their defence. Thus my missing poster was not only a good work of art but also an historical document and very valuable in my eyes. Nobody owned up to any knowledge of its existence and, for me, it proved criminal negligence if not downright dishonesty on the part of management, (and all this from a fucking Art School that had denied me admission in 1982!)
The first appointment with the SEDITION organisers was with the lovely Lesa Furfagin, only she stood me up, I waited for an hour but she had forgotten about me, that's how important I was in her mind. She later apologised profusely and on our next meeting told me of "the revolution", the world was in dire straights, we had to do some strenuous activism to help the planet survive, the clock was ticking, the end was nigh, "Heeeellllppppp!!!!" She waxed ecstatic about her scoring giant shop windows in World square on George Street in the city. "Think of it, your art in a prominent place, for all of Sydney to walk by and see!" I stupidly gulped in amazement, "Yes, those dastardly fascists, fucking us all over, let's go get 'em!"
She smiled primly, Boadicea with 2020 vision, and I would be her foot-soldier, waving my paint-brushes as weapons. Later in 2019 I was asked to have another meeting with her, this time I was to be promoted, I fancied, to major-sergeant. Oh, she couldn't make it, she was too busy, she sent her lieutenant along, Toby Crosswell, to talk turkey with me. I liked him, he was relaxed, up front, but there was nothing to talk about, just the same tripe, the giant shop windows in George Street, yeah, yeah, yeah. Then he tore his shirt open and showed me a giant scar running down his chest. He'd had a heart swap six months previously and was still kicking. I went into shock and felt great sympathy for him, I being an RN. I liked him, he was more down to earth than Lesa, I filled his ears with Rolling Stone gossip about rock stars and the music industry from my guttersnipe perspective. All was well with the revolution I thought, soon the barriers would be going up.
As we got closer to October sweet Lesa asked me if I would join my "Politics of Survival" show with her SEDITION. She wanted to put her logo in Pass-Port's shop window and promised I would get a lot of foot traffic from some "walk-about tour" she was arranging. I didn't see any harm in joining her, I was always willing to help out, and if it meant extra eyeballs on my work so much the better. She put "Toby Zoates SEDITION satellite show at Pass-Port Darlinghurst" in her brochure, and my name went on the list of participants on a big board, with much brou-ha-ha, in the George Street window, a guttersnipe amid all the rest of the "names" and "wannabe names."
In my eyes some of these artists were "darlings of the Establishment", yet badly wanting to be declared the most edgy, the most happening; much of the art was obtuse, conceptual, bearing little resemblance to anything that could be called "seditious." They were cheeky yes, dour definitely, rocking the boat, hardly. The confidence rap from Lesa was as radical as the affair ever got, my eyes narrowed on seeing the list, things weren't looking good.
I submitted my work which I hoped would go in the window, "Psychopath Inc.", basically a critique of the arms industry hovering over humanity like the sword of Damocles. When all was ready to go I went down to George Street to have a look, surprise, surprise, my large ink drawing wasn't there. An ugly piece of Mombasa's old crap took up one whole window, his brother's wife with a pink knitted cardigan and tea-pot doily was there among other cute biddy rubbish, but not poor little me. What the fuck!
I rang up Furfagin and admonished her raucously about her elitism, saying her show was, "About as seditious as a Coles plastic shopping bag!" She wept miserably, saying she did her best, she wasn't even paid, (hmmm...) and she would quickly put my "Fukushima is Fucked" ink drawing up to be an eyesore amid all the nice, colourful bullshit she was lionising. She swore my "Psychopath Inc." had pride of place in the foyer at the Eternity Theatre down in Darlingurst and would be seen by hundreds of people. (I can imagine her cursing and thinking, "That fucking Toby Zoates, living up to his troublesome reputation!")
I rushed down to Darlinghurst and the Eternity Theatre, it was all locked up and dark. I peered longingly through the small, dusty windows but all I could see was a giant, red plastic locomotive from a happening Dutch-Asian wunderkind and no drawing by me. I rang her up again and abused the shit out of her and in despair she cried, "But I put it there myself!" Later on I discovered it was way, way inside, facing into the foyer, with its back to the windows, and I was promised on the night of the grand, (boring) concert hundreds of guests would see it. I gave up. I didn't go to the celebratory dinner at the opening, I didn't go to the (boring) rock music show, or the dreary discussion panel (Mambo's brother's wife talked about why her pink knitted cardigan was seditious), and I didn't see any of Lesa's throng of walkabout enthusiasts put their feet inside my show at Pass-Port as I was there every day keeping a look-out. Apparently very few went to any of her "revolution", it was all blow and no show.
The SEDITION logo in the window of Pass-Port Store and Gallery was quite ugly and the guy who worked there hated it and wanted it torn down. I told him of the hassles I'd had with the flaccid art rebellion and asked him, "Why did they bother to pull me into it in the first place?" He cynically replied, "To suck off your street cred!" Now this surprised me because I'm not that aware I have much of a reputation. After all, I live in social housing, in ignominy, in poverty. I am never written up in any of the respected art magazines or newsletters, never invited to participate in shows, give talks, join panels or toasted at art galleries' dinner parties, (thank NO fucking god!) But I have put in 45 years of pasting thousands of astounding posters on Sydney's walls, handing out subversive flyers, making videos, performing stories, showing my movies, writing books, drawing comics, painting murals, having solo art shows, participating in innumerable group shows, (thanks to Damien Minton, Pass-Port and The Gunnery.) So I should have some credibility, I just don't go around skiting or dining off it.
The denouement of this whole shitfest was Lesa Furfagin having the nerve to ask me if I would give her one of the flyers I created for my show, "The Politics of Survival", which she said she wanted to hand in to the Sydney City Council with the rest of her "end of project summary" so as to prove the festival really contributed interesting shit to the cultural life of Sydney and thus justifying her grant. Wanda, the woman who had flopped-out on the King Street, Newtown window parade, was pissed off with me for putting the SEDITION logo on my flyer. She complained that she also had to supply an "end of project summary" with paperwork, receipts and descriptions of the results to the Sydney City Council to prove what she'd spent the money on. I suggested she use my Pass-Port show as part of her summation as, after all, it was her who had inspired me to do my "School For Scoundrels" installation. "Oh no!" she snapped, "You've already given that to SEDITION, it can't be claimed twice." I don't know why she was so uptight, she'd achieved her real agenda, she wanted to go to America where she thought she'd make it big as an artist and she had the $10,000 to get there and live well for awhile. Everybody blew smoke and it was my ass that copped it.
Lesa Furfagin licked her lips as I handed her my Pass-Port flyer even though she didn't put one dollar into my show, I paid for it all from my pension, and I bet she got thousands of dollars as a grant. I didn't get a cent in artist's fees for the one drawing she did take as part of "her" show, though I bet Mombasa and elite company didn't do the George street window display for free, (I asked her three times if she had paid them an artist's fee and each time she avoided the question and gaslighted me as if I was just being neurotic.) And, for all Furfagin's whining that she didn't get paid, I can't help wondering if maybe she didn't cream off some of the money as it's not just prestige that gronks are after with any of their agendas but MONEY is almost always at the bottom of it.
I thought this was an awfully short time to accomplish such a difficult task as my art is highly political, critical of the Morriscum cabal and authoritarian state, and usually rich people were part and parcel of neo-capitalism and class oppression and wouldn't approve of my art. Suddenly she blurted, "I know what I'll do, I'll give you the $8000 straight up and then donate the works to one of the big State galleries, that'll get you in. I'll badger them until they take it, I'm sure they'll go for it!" I was stunned, in my mind it was a ludicrous proposal.
"But why would you give $8000 of your precious money? It's sounds unbelievable to me," I exclaimed. Portentously she intoned, "Because I believe in your genius emphatically. I think you are going to be the next big thing and I want to be there for it, I will support you to get there!"
I was dumbfounded, nobody in my long life of toil and turmoil has offered such generosity. I blubbered, I spluttered, I kissed her hand, I hugged her affectionately as if she were a furry teddy-bear, dear Furfagin. As I walked away, three feet in the air, I waved back wistfully with tears in my eyes, and she flapped her own hand about like a trained seal. Wasn't life miraculous?
And then I never heard from her again, the cone of silence descended, a void yawned before me and swallowed me whole, and her too it seemed. I waited weeks by the phone for her call and nothing came. "Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could..." was the Julie Andrews song I was reminded of and kept humming.
After 7 weeks I rang her and asked with much angst, "What Happened?" "Oh my mother is sick and I've been looking after her."
"Yeah yeah, the old sick relative routine, sure. Why, WHY did you bother telling me all that bullshit? I just don't get it. It's outrageous what you said to me, the $8000 and being my manager! You actually blew smoke up my arse and smiled while you were doing it!" "Oh I wouldn't say that, that's a bit harsh! You're imagining heinous motives where there aren't any. Stop it Toby, stop it! You're being unfair! I'm your friend!"
"Oh, gaslighting me again, it's all my fault, I'm mad yeah? You're a piece of work, you really are! I bet you're busily putting together another proposal for more money for next year's SEDITION, (she was), and planning to rope in some more greedy, establishment-sucking fame-whores to do your bidding!" Putting on a snooty, high class voice I intoned, " Oh, what a kooky art lover you are, a happening, brilliant supporter of those fabulous bohemian artists, you'll be the toast of the town and welcome at all the Art Gallery of New South Wales soirees." "Oh stop it Toby, stop it it! Boo hoo hoo!"
I hung up on her, seething with annoyance. This is the long and winding road trod by many an artist, meeting up with opportunistic wankers with hidden agendas that are a mystery to decipher but of course always involve money and kudos. Ignominy's hard to bare, so is starvation and humiliation, those fucking dicks who pretend to want to give you a leg up but in reality just want your leg to gnaw on. Yuk! No god save me from them. There are cool people of course, who really do help, selflessly, quietly, they don't beat drums, go for grants or wangle your art for free then sell it on for big money.
Here I am, at the end of my life, broke, no hope, notorious, wondering what next will sweep me along in the gutter. I made a movie once, "Virgin Beasts", that won a world prize and been shown all around the world yet Australia shut its door in my face, nobody would give it a go. If some upper-middle class brat from the National Art School had done it he/she would get a ticker-tape parade, but not a street artist; the masses are told brown streaks like arse-wipes on canvas are high art and that's what deserves recognition. Art about the destruction of the world by a fascistic elite is verboten, nailing the political criminals in their thieving maniacal acts, putting a name and a face to them, shock-horror, such an artist is to be killed off.
My "Politics of Survival" show was radical, about real issues, unlike many of the "arts for arts sake" rubbish showing in most galleries: terrace houses, the Sydney Harbor, vases of flowers and cows under gum-trees, or abstract expressionism that has had its time back in the '40s and '50s... uggghhh! No god help us all!
Sorry for saying it but most artists are wankers, all cheesy smiles as if they're no god's gift to the planet. The gronks chugging on beer cans think any blob of color from their mate, the hot artist, is cool, especially if it doesn't make them think, they're so tired of thinking, they just want to get drunk and fuck. And stare into their smart phones at endless selfies of themselves and their drunken buddies and their possible good root. All the while the fascist criminals who have taken over are planning to cause a war because their thieving and raping is getting noticed, war will be their big distraction, probably a stupid conflagration with China, and as our youth are getting their balls shot off they'll wonder, "How did it come to this? Who blew smoke up my arse and told me this was a good thing to get involved in?"
How many times did I get betrayed in my artist's life? Countless! That Tin Shed crowd where I toiled for 7 years in their "community access" workshop never gave me one job that got rung in by groups wanting their political diatribes given the high art treatment, I didn't even get the gay lib promotions and I was the only poof within 700 yards of the joint. When I spotted the cans of fluero paint gathering dust in a corner I asked who was using them and I was told by one of the clique, Stony Bobbinson, "Nobody, they're too '60s hippie for our taste." It was 1978 and I did my "Anti-Authoritarian Dance poster in fluero pink, blue and yellow which ignited an explosive rock party in Balmain Town hall. In 1979 I did my "Garibaldis Benifit" poster with four screens of fluero acrylic against a heavy black field. For this one, everybody's eyeballs popped, "Oh what a fantastic poster!" they yammered. Within a year every gronk and their dog was making fluero coloured poster with heavy black, I got trampled in the rush.
At a SEDITION panel of rabble-rousing verbal diarrhoea the same Stony Bobbinson chortled, "Oh yes, back in the '70s fluero became the happening thing, we all pioneered it, it was revolutionary!" Crap on some more ya boring careerist. When I was finishing my fluero "Thief of Sydney" poster with its uranium dragon wrapped around the Centrepoint Tower in a post-apocalyptic Sydney, then putting it on the racks, a Japanese guy came into the workshop, Rick Tanaka. His face lit up with excitement, "I do a Japanese pop music show on 2SER radio and that's the kind of poster I want to advertise it! Will you do me one like it?" "Umm, you'll have to ask the "Dirtworks Collective" permission first and I'll have a go if they let me," I hopefully replied.
When he put it to the "Collective" explaining he wanted something similar to mine Michael Callaghan snapped up the job and did his fluero Godzilla attacking the Centrepoint Tower in a Sydney city-scape, which is ok but for the next umpteen years they drag his shit out and ballyhoo it in magazines and National Art gallery catalogues as a prime example of quintessential poster art, and I got to be an also ran, never mentioned, expunged from the record. (When I look for that particular Godzilla poster online it seems to have disappeared as if the Dirtworks clique heard about my bitching and have sequestered it in a closet somewhere.) My anti-uranium poster, with its elite-class critique was too nasty for the rulers of the art world.
Good luck to Michael, he got hung in MCA down at the Quay, all his maneuvering come true. I don't mind him getting noticed, he was a great artist and did many fabulous works, I'm just fucked off that I got to eat his dust. But he also got liver cancer from breathing in the copious amounts of paint thinners he used and had a miserable life for his last ten years. I got poverty-stricken ignominy and a fantastic old age dancing on the beaches by the Arabian sea, riding elephants through the Indian jungles and eating organic munchies on the streets of Nimbin, in other words an ongoing wonderful life without fame or money.
After 7 years of toiling in the community open access poster work, (or that was the cooperative con at the time), and never offered a job, always going out and creating my own chance to make posters by throwing benefits for worthy causes, a job teaching silkscreen to Sydney University students came up and I applied for it. At the time two tight cows were running the Tin Sheds by then calling themselves the "JuicyToil Collective", Pam Devonham and Leonie Whatshername. A creepy guy walked in off the street and they gave the job to him, I got condemned to my unemployed dereliction in the squats and I was extremely PISSED OFF! He was a macho gronk and put the hard word on them continuously so after a few weeks they had to sack him.
That very poster that disappeared from SEDITION, "Bastille Day at Garibaldis" was in the archives at the Sheds, among many of my other works. Many of them got sold onto galleries and private collectors, I hardly got a cent for them. How would you feel if you got written out entirely from the history of art when you'd put in 45 years of practice, particularly poster art. What was the problem? Jealousy, competition, homophobia, middle-class snobbery, mundane life annoyance, personality clash? When I recently looked at 'Search the Collection" at the National Gallery of Art Canberra I barely rate a mention. What really shits me is some of my posters are given the wrong credit, such as my "Garibaldis Bastille Day." The NGA claims the artist is Cari Baldis!!! Fucking ridiculous. And it is part of the JuicyToil Collective's work! What a fucking nerve! The Director of the NGA, James Mollison, had purchased it for the Phillip Morris Arts Grant 1982 and then given as a gift to the NGA. IT WASN'T PURCHASED FROM ME! This is the treatment most "artists" get. I wish I'd never had the naive hope to become one of the wankers, the unconnected, poor ones just cop it up the arse.
I suppose that's what I get for being an "underground" anti-system punk anarchist, I didn't even sign some of my posters or hid my name deep within the graphic. I just wasn't a careerist or considered "high art" as a career, I didn't keep them for future gallery shows or posterity, I put nearly all of them up on the walls of Sydney, stupid fucker that I am. To quote Quentin Crisp, "Other people are a mistake." I cynically believe the default characteristic and basic M.O. of uncivilised humanity is unbridled ambition, uncontrollable greed and nasty BETRAYAL.
Oh well, I can breathe easy, here at the end I can say, "My work is done." I've nursed the dying and the dead, ( as a palliative care RN, that's a REAL job), traveled the world, won grand prizes, created fabulous art, had awesome adventures, loved beautiful friends and danced ecstatic and abandoned. As I lay dying, finally having swallowed a handful of opiate pills and cut my wrists, I'm at peace, happy to leave the braindead gronks to wallow in their muck, while the sound of crowds cheering, screaming and moaning fades from my awareness, while uplifting music plays, the planet dwindles to a miniscule dot and disappears into the cosmic dust, and I am set free.
