Reports

From time to time, a small spark jumps from the ashes to inflame the passion of gallery-goers, art students, critics and patrons alike. Each time, the hope is that this new conflagration will be the "next big thing". Unfortunately, more often than not it is but a last dying flame expiring beneath a fortuitous summer storm. Such is the case with Charles Saatchi's bad-boy-toy, Damien Hirst.

Hirst, of course, would never claim that he has any aspirations toward Fraudulism. Quite the opposite, he is a staunch practitioner of the age-old "reverse psychology". He prefers to hide behind his glass cases of formaldehyde and allow the light refracting between the slabs of dead flesh to distort his public image with ambiguity and brilliance; to save the debris of his exuberant chain-smoking so as to exhibit it in giant pestilential ashtrays beneath photographs of candy-coloured pharmaceuticals. He would call himself a radical, a deviant, socially conscious, and his very avoidance of more original labels lulls critics and dilettantes alike into falsely bestowing upon him the more glorious mantle of Fraud. We imagine him outraged, fail to see him hiding his pleasure in the chic rest rooms of his new Notting Hill eatery.

Why then grant him further publicity for his egotistical archives? The answer is tragically simple: comparison. Even as the British press was recovering from the Sensation blitz of last fall and the saccharine sound bytes concerning his newest venture's trendy opening, a purer, sweeter phenomenon was coming to a close-- Hell's Terrace, the impish platform for local Londoner Fraud Art.

Hell's Terrace could not have differed more from the pompous exhibitions of Hirst and his yBa ilk. Tucked into the ethnically diverse neighbourhood of Finsbury Park, birthplace of Johnny Rotten and dumping ground for the haute bourgeoisie that frequents the West End clubs, Hell's Terrace was home to the visual heir to the late 70s/early 80s no-wave meta-noir movement. It was hard to find, and violent casualties were not unheard of (visitors tossed over wrought-iron fences and menaced by young gangsters looking to extort petty cash for the bus and the Guy). And yet, peacefully ensconced in the second floor interior, one easily slipped into the colourful festivities of the new Fraud Art.

Overflowing ashtrays were evidence only of practicality, not creative genius, and dead animals, save for the inevitable handful of exotic shrink-wrapped delicacies in the freezer, were nowhere to be seen.

In other words, Hell's Terrace was a gallery in the most honest sense-- not a forum for middle-aged art-school dropouts, nor a home to mediocre talent, nor a dastardly complex publicity ritual. On the contrary, its contributors often requested that their works remain anonymous, so as not to detract from the profound originality of the art itself. Among its daily visitors were such luminaries as Yuri Gillespie, B. Palermo, Maiz Eye, Rrandom Bodega, the Lady Wem, Spinktzarus Nil, and oolah Z. Yet despite such exceptional advocates, the gallery remained, as most truly unique innovations often do, an unsullied secret, free from the manipulative influence of reporters and critics, a subject for animated private conversations, memoirs, and inspired written correspondence.

"Hell's Terrace--" one such letter extols, "the vivacity of its fluctuating displays, its Puckish ambience-- so natural, unassuming, scented with greatness and sprinkled with the lifeblood of Steven Samuel Pierce himself."

I couldn't agree more, nor, I imagine, could any of the lucky few blessed with the opportunity to visit the spacious rooms of the affectionately nicknamed T'race. From the doorstep of the hottest debauchery and sin, to the tender first sketches on the page, even its name reflected the intricate gears that never ceased to churn behind the modest chipped paint of its façade.

But how could such a charmed refuge from the trite praises of the mass media, from the mimicry of savants, have expired so silently? In the same way it came into being: honourably. T'race was always the child of a deeply personal venture, and once it had matured, its mysterious creators moved on. One day, dawn saw a procession of lively personalities flowing in a chattering stream, brushes in hand, exit from the red front door. The next saw the unwitting arrival of a group of painfully ordinary "indie" types, refugees from the bourgeois scene the T'race contingent had so long fought off.

Fortunately, while Hell's Terrace may now be only the centrepiece of halcyon remembrances, the true flesh of Fraud Art is still vital and young. Younger than the crotchety Hirst and his crew, who would have us believe that "death" is still synonymous with "shock", and "shock" with "art". No, the true direction of contemporary art lies elsewhere, and it continues to forge onward down a self-made path that will, one hopes, some day soon obscure even the haziest glimpses of today's "scandalous" and "sensational" impostors. Its name is "Fraud", and it already glitters with the rising sun of rejuvenation and promise.

Long live Fraud Art, and Hell's Terrace, may you rest in peace, and may your creators continue in their delicious ways.

HELL'S TERRACE R.I.P. (1991-1998)