One day in Berlin, I saw the rerun of the RA’s Young British Artists exhibition at the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin’s equivalent of Tate Modern. After that, I saw a superb retrospective of Lyonel Feininger at the Neue Deutsche Galerie. In the evening, I ran into the onlie begetter of the YBA show (which, with the exception of Ron Mueck’s amazing sculptures, had not given me much pleasure), my (unrelated) namesake Norman. I had no wish to discuss Norman’s pride and joy, the YBA, so turned the conversation to Feininger and asked whether Norman had seen it. ‘Ah,’ said Norman, ‘what a bore; I won’t waste my time on him.’
After that I directed a few verbal punches at the YBA, ending with the view that the bulk of them would be forgotten in 50 years. ‘Rubbish,’ said Norman. ‘You might as well champion that old fraud Lowry.’ At which point I seriously thought of directing a few real punches at the RA’s exhibition supremo, but decided that, while having some of Norman’s blood on the walls of the relatively louche ICA might be a good thing, splashing the stuff around the august and bling-laden surroundings of the Deutsche Oper might be an assault too far. So I contented myself with: ‘Just wait and see. I promise you that in 50 years’ time, Lowry will have eclipsed all the YBAs.’
Why, you may well wonder, had I turned myself into a parfit gentil knight on Lowry’s behalf. He was, after all, long dead and loved or respected by relatively few people anywhere and by hardly any in the art world. I can, of course, instantly recognise the major fault of his huge popularity, which is not helped by the Lowry museum in Salford with its plethora (perhaps excessive) of merchandise: posters, reproductions, calendars, coffee mugs, pencils, wallets and many other carefully invented money-spinners.
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