The peacock. A knocked down dream.

A performance by Filippos Tsitsopoulos

Revenge has many forms and the one chosen by the painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler against his patron, the shipping magnate from Liverpool Frederick Leyland, was quite visual. The artist painted an evil anthropomorphic figure - half peacock, half man - playing the piano sitting in a house and surrounded by amounts of money. The painting was called The Gold Scab: Eruption in Filthy Lucre, in a clear reference to his ex-sponsor and client, M. Leyland and his Jewish origins, who decided not to pay the commissioned the Peacock Room to Whistler, after several disagreements on the costs and the way that the piece was designed. As a consequence of the non-payment, the artist lost his house because he couldn’t pay his debts.

Even though, the reference of this performance drawn from an old show about Whistler’s Peacock Room at the Bluecoat in Liverpool, that was including a reconstruction of the Peacock Room and a copy of the painting The Gold Scab: Eruption in Filthy Lucre, is mostly articulated around the “charismatic public persona who challenged the art community” with his art, words, writings and innovative ideas on the exhibition space, Whistler is most of all, an artist devoted to the art for the art’s sake. An artist against the system, surviving into the system, standing by his art.

When Whistler decided to make the Peacock Room in his own way, against his client’s desires, he was choosing sides. The natural debate between being a part of the system (curators, galleries, actionists, biennales, critics, academics, institutions, collectionists, sponsors, clients, grants…) and being an artist true to his principles and his art, arises at this point. The complex mechanism of the art world shows the artist’s vulnerability. The monster devours the artist, giving voice to his words. The reflection of the artist’s nothingness, the artist forced to be whatever the monster says he has to be.There is always a moment when a person must stand his ground, and defend himself.