Art for art’s sake…

As someone who has made pamphlets, manifestos, performances, sound poetry, readings, art films, ready-mades, paintings and collages since my teens, I can only say that I find performance art boring and pretentious.

I like early Dada and I like early punk rock. I like early rock’n’roll, I like early blues. But what I don’t like is when these forms become hybrids. Rock music played from the roof of Buckingham Palace is not a victory for rock’n’roll but a defeat for life.

It’s okay for Kurt Schwitters and Hans Arp to languish in dusty old museums because their work wasn’t compromised to be there in the first place. In fact, by its very nature, it was seen as an attack on these institutions, not a love affair with them.

State-sponsored Dada is not worth having. In fact, it is no longer Dada. The sight of rock musicians running after Hollywood film soundtracks and Brit artists fawning in front of style snobs and advertising moguls is vomit inducing. It would have any self-respecting Dadaist spinning in their grave, if they were still alive.

Such crass commercialism is uninspiring for the soul and art without soul is not worth having. Here is a rule of thumb: marketed rebellion is very probably not rebellion and marketed art is very probably not art.

So is performance art any good as an art form? Well yes, it can be, although usually it isn’t. But then the same can also be said of painting, poetry, television and the whole gamut of commercial culture. I call for our artists to make art that matters more to them than the grant and congratulations they hope to receive for doing it. Amen. Billy Childish 14 November 03

Art, Lies And Videotape: Exposing Performance is at Tate Liverpool until 25 January 04. We'll be reviewing it next week.