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Randall
Stel je voor dat Damien Hirst nooit furore had gemaakt. Stel je voor dat iemand anders de meest beruchte Britse kunstenaar was geworden van de jaren negentig. Die kunstenaar heet Randall: een geniale provocateur die de pers en het publiek amuseert maar ook compleet in verwarring brengt. Hij wordt stinkend rijk en zet de internationale kunstscene op zijn kop.
Zijn verhaal wordt jaren na zijn overlijden verteld door zijn beste vriend Vincent, die de opdracht heeft gekregen om Randalls laatste – en grootste – daad uit te voeren. Hij doet dit samen met zijn ex Justine, de weduwe van Randall. Zo slaagt Randall er ook postuum in relaties onder druk te zetten en zelfs over zijn graf heen te regeren.
Zijn verhaal wordt jaren na zijn overlijden verteld door zijn beste vriend Vincent, die de opdracht heeft gekregen om Randalls laatste – en grootste – daad uit te voeren. Hij doet dit samen met zijn ex Justine, de weduwe van Randall. Zo slaagt Randall er ook postuum in relaties onder druk te zetten en zelfs over zijn graf heen te regeren.
400 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2014
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158 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
September 23, 2019
A disappointing novel set in the naif subculture of the 1990s, pastiching the Young British Artist movement. The author’s invented artworks and art-world pronouncements have a subtle satirical edge, and the pacing and dialogue is strong, although the prose itself is so pedestrian this reader had to bail at p.260 through boredom. The novel overreaches for literary pathos in the final quarter, and the narrator’s wet-fish charisma-vacuum becomes more evident than earlier. A little shorter and this might have succeeded.
July 23, 2016
Randall is described as "satirical," which it is, but not in the comical sense — Gibbs' novel is satire the way the art of the era it reimagines, the 90s, was simultaneously thumbing its nose at and urging onward traditions, serious and self-deprecating at once. What really struck me was that the artistic undertakings and objects invented here as Randall's iconic works fit are so perfectly apt for the time that they seem inevitable, in a sense, and I'm left wondering why no one did undertake the projects invented here. That deep, confident — and quite impressive — plausibility gives the novel real power, because rather than take the perhaps easier satirical route of sharing a wink with the reader at the excesses of the art world, Randall develops the complex personalities and impulses underlying it all — if anything, it makes the era seem more rather than less than it did at the time. Really a superb novel about what it is to make art, to be part of a cultural moment, and to make sense of that moment long after its clamor dies down.
August 11, 2014
A lively, colourful and shrewd re-imagining of the 90's and early-noughties British art scene. Utterly believable, this deftly penned novel is written from the POV of an unassuming narrator on the scene's fringes. Rather than try to be an in-your-face and events driven romp through the art & Britpop explosion, which would have been easy and predictable, it is a thoughtful and at times amusingly cynical open question into what we value as a society, as individuals, and as a species.
Wry and heartfelt, witty and soul-searching all, I couldn't stop reading Randall, which subtly enters the inner sphere and leaves you pondering all sorts of 'stuff'. Looking forward to Gibbs' next venture.
Wry and heartfelt, witty and soul-searching all, I couldn't stop reading Randall, which subtly enters the inner sphere and leaves you pondering all sorts of 'stuff'. Looking forward to Gibbs' next venture.
July 1, 2022
The milieu upon which Vincent Cartwright, merchant banker, comments is the Young British Artist scene in 1990’s London, which seems – in this representation at least – to have largely been a bunch of self-indulgent, self-aggrandising media whores, intoxicating themselves into greater heights of over-blown inanity in a world where good contacts could turn homeopathic traces of artistic talent into obscene quantities of cash. Cartwright could be Richard Papin or Nick Carraway, or the chap in Metropolitan, any partially-assimilated alien in a closed, privileged world. He has been a wealthy friend of a small group of London artists, and was particularly friendly with Randall (single name only, natch), for whom he makes a couple of valuable connections and for whom he functions as a ‘wealth manager’. Randall married Joanne, after she and Cartwright split up, and the former couple meet again for the first time in some years, after Randall’s death. The cause for the re-connection is Joanne’s discovery of a large collection of pornographic paintings by Randall, scandalously featuring almost everyone they know.
There is a central difficulty with reading the novel, and it derives from Gibb’s skill in characterisation of people and their milieu. They are so convincing, and in consequence, so repellent and mockable, that it is very difficult to work up any concern about any of them. They are vapid and meaningless, so there is necessarily a lack of any sense of tension if one cannot hunt up a single damn to give about any of them. Their work has aesthetic or creative value only within the context that they have themselves created for themselves (with the exception of two talents, Kevin and Aga, who are primarily remote from the story). The female artists are caricatures of both the artistic and the wealthy-socialite worlds, even Aga, beyond her talent, is a paper-thin character. The most rounded female character is Joanne, and though she has an art-related profession, her role in the story is primarily defined by her relationships with Vincent, then Randall, and finally Josh, her son. Randall is, necessarily, the most developed – he can hardly be called complex, under the circumstances – character. It may be a necessarily evil in a satire that characters can’t be fully developed. If Randall and the people in his milieu were living beings, if they were the literary equivalent of Lucien Freud’s subjects rather than the sort of pen-sketches that illustrated Paul Jennings, then Randall’s realisation that he is full of sound and fury and signifies nothing outside of the toasty echo-chamber of commodified art would be a Greek tragedy.
There is a small smack of tragedy in the final scenes. Josh, shocked by his father's death, throws his toys out of the pram over the disposal of his father’s art-work and the response of his mother to his tantrums strongly suggests that she will transfer her pampering obligations from one male ego to another. Worse still, it seems that Josh’s girlfriend Gaby is destined for the same supporting role.
The external anxieties – what to do with the rude nudes? – are presented as though the cause of anxiety are obvious, but the exact nature of the consequences attendant on the paintings being made public are not articulated. Is the reader to conclude that the artist’s reputation will be damaged if it is known he painted smut? Given the coprophilic theme of a previous series of works, that hardly seems likely, nor that, where there a market has purchased repurposed skid-marks, it could not be persuaded to purchase a little fake fornication. Will Randall’s main buyers and patrons be offended by seeing themselves thus depicted? But Randall’s whole schtick was shock, and maximum outrage the chief ambition, so why should they clutch their pearls at this logical, if juvenile, extension? Why would their outrage be taken seriously? Without an overweening and specific reason for panic, the reaction of Joanne and Vincent to finding a secret studio full of pornographic paintings seems to be simple embarrassment. It is an understandable reaction but if the characters are not very interesting, and there is no apparent threat, it is difficult for the reader to enter into the same spirit.
Many individual bits of Randall are really very good, but it does not quite work as a novel. It is more like a series of observant, informed, witty, critical articles about visual art, that have been woven into a narrative. The narrative is told partly in the first person, from Vincent’s point of view, and these sections are part of the novel that Vincent is writing. But this interesting meta aspect is not really explored, and there is only one extended depiction of his attempts to write, which in any case turns into an opportunity for recounting memories, rather than reflecting on the writing process. The switching point-of-view becomes more of a stylistic device than an opportunity to extemporise on the nature of writing.
What is worth reading the novel for, regardless of the plot, are the artworks Gibbs presents (presumably of his own invention) on behalf of Randall, which are quite magnificent in their terrible, pretentious, manipulative way.
There is a central difficulty with reading the novel, and it derives from Gibb’s skill in characterisation of people and their milieu. They are so convincing, and in consequence, so repellent and mockable, that it is very difficult to work up any concern about any of them. They are vapid and meaningless, so there is necessarily a lack of any sense of tension if one cannot hunt up a single damn to give about any of them. Their work has aesthetic or creative value only within the context that they have themselves created for themselves (with the exception of two talents, Kevin and Aga, who are primarily remote from the story). The female artists are caricatures of both the artistic and the wealthy-socialite worlds, even Aga, beyond her talent, is a paper-thin character. The most rounded female character is Joanne, and though she has an art-related profession, her role in the story is primarily defined by her relationships with Vincent, then Randall, and finally Josh, her son. Randall is, necessarily, the most developed – he can hardly be called complex, under the circumstances – character. It may be a necessarily evil in a satire that characters can’t be fully developed. If Randall and the people in his milieu were living beings, if they were the literary equivalent of Lucien Freud’s subjects rather than the sort of pen-sketches that illustrated Paul Jennings, then Randall’s realisation that he is full of sound and fury and signifies nothing outside of the toasty echo-chamber of commodified art would be a Greek tragedy.
There is a small smack of tragedy in the final scenes. Josh, shocked by his father's death, throws his toys out of the pram over the disposal of his father’s art-work and the response of his mother to his tantrums strongly suggests that she will transfer her pampering obligations from one male ego to another. Worse still, it seems that Josh’s girlfriend Gaby is destined for the same supporting role.
The external anxieties – what to do with the rude nudes? – are presented as though the cause of anxiety are obvious, but the exact nature of the consequences attendant on the paintings being made public are not articulated. Is the reader to conclude that the artist’s reputation will be damaged if it is known he painted smut? Given the coprophilic theme of a previous series of works, that hardly seems likely, nor that, where there a market has purchased repurposed skid-marks, it could not be persuaded to purchase a little fake fornication. Will Randall’s main buyers and patrons be offended by seeing themselves thus depicted? But Randall’s whole schtick was shock, and maximum outrage the chief ambition, so why should they clutch their pearls at this logical, if juvenile, extension? Why would their outrage be taken seriously? Without an overweening and specific reason for panic, the reaction of Joanne and Vincent to finding a secret studio full of pornographic paintings seems to be simple embarrassment. It is an understandable reaction but if the characters are not very interesting, and there is no apparent threat, it is difficult for the reader to enter into the same spirit.
Many individual bits of Randall are really very good, but it does not quite work as a novel. It is more like a series of observant, informed, witty, critical articles about visual art, that have been woven into a narrative. The narrative is told partly in the first person, from Vincent’s point of view, and these sections are part of the novel that Vincent is writing. But this interesting meta aspect is not really explored, and there is only one extended depiction of his attempts to write, which in any case turns into an opportunity for recounting memories, rather than reflecting on the writing process. The switching point-of-view becomes more of a stylistic device than an opportunity to extemporise on the nature of writing.
What is worth reading the novel for, regardless of the plot, are the artworks Gibbs presents (presumably of his own invention) on behalf of Randall, which are quite magnificent in their terrible, pretentious, manipulative way.
November 6, 2014
Wonderful. Like a novelization of Pulp's Common People.
July 30, 2016
Randall, by Jonathan Gibbs, imagines a world where Damian Hirst dies before he becomes Britain’s most eminent artist provocoteur. That throne is captured by Randall, a conceptual artist whose controversial work causes outrage amongst his closest friends as well as the art establishment and public.
The book is largely written from the point of view of Vincent, a city trader who meets Randall at the opening of his degree show at Goldsmiths in 1989 and ends up joining his circle of closest friends. From the beginning of the tale, set in 2014, we know that Randall is now dead. His widow, Justine, has contacted Vincent and asked him to fly to New York as she has something to show him. This turns out to be a series of recently discovered artworks that have the potential to turn their world upside down.
Vincent has been writing a book about Randall’s life which is presented between the present day chapters. Thus the reader learns of Randall’s rise through the national and then international artworld, and of his views on what is regarded as art. It is challenging, enlightening, amusing and somewhat poignant. Randall took his work seriously whilst mocking those who admired what he produced. He shocked for effect yet whatever he created was considered brilliant. He demanded that his admirers consider what their behaviour towards him illustrated about themselves.
The monetary value of a work of art isn’t based on the initial purchase cost but on its resale value. Art collectors are investors, traders. A piece becomes a part of their collection, its initial raison d’être serving only as an advertisement. Randall made things that looked like art and collectors snapped them up. Does what is considered art even exist or is it what fits with the accepted aesthetics of the time? Art connoisseurs can be somewhat smug, particularly when confronted with those they consider lacking in art appreciation. Randall recognised this and did what he could to rattle the gilded cages of their world.
“When it’s is the studio, it’s still part of the artist. When it’s in the gallery, it’s a commodity”
Vincent’s memoir offers insight into the art world and a somewhat possessive view of a friend. In the background are other artists from Randall’s circle who have different yet also close relationships with the man. Such is the nature of friendship but in presenting it in this way the reader is challenged to consider how well anyone can know another however close they may be, or wish to to be.
Vincent suggests that Randall despised those he relied upon for his fame and fortune, and that he often treated his friends little better. As the reader learns of the artist’s relationship with his wife and son this picture is revealed as somewhat skewed. Perhaps, as with art, each person sees only their own interpretation, coloured by what they are educated to expect.
The writing is deft and provides a fascinating, original and highly readable story. Then there is the ending. This left me wondering if the author had played me as his protagonist was wont to do. Either it is clever and I am not, or this questionning is the point. However I choose to interpret, I am frustrated that I could not complete the circle. Despite my lack, this is a recommended read.
The book is largely written from the point of view of Vincent, a city trader who meets Randall at the opening of his degree show at Goldsmiths in 1989 and ends up joining his circle of closest friends. From the beginning of the tale, set in 2014, we know that Randall is now dead. His widow, Justine, has contacted Vincent and asked him to fly to New York as she has something to show him. This turns out to be a series of recently discovered artworks that have the potential to turn their world upside down.
Vincent has been writing a book about Randall’s life which is presented between the present day chapters. Thus the reader learns of Randall’s rise through the national and then international artworld, and of his views on what is regarded as art. It is challenging, enlightening, amusing and somewhat poignant. Randall took his work seriously whilst mocking those who admired what he produced. He shocked for effect yet whatever he created was considered brilliant. He demanded that his admirers consider what their behaviour towards him illustrated about themselves.
The monetary value of a work of art isn’t based on the initial purchase cost but on its resale value. Art collectors are investors, traders. A piece becomes a part of their collection, its initial raison d’être serving only as an advertisement. Randall made things that looked like art and collectors snapped them up. Does what is considered art even exist or is it what fits with the accepted aesthetics of the time? Art connoisseurs can be somewhat smug, particularly when confronted with those they consider lacking in art appreciation. Randall recognised this and did what he could to rattle the gilded cages of their world.
“When it’s is the studio, it’s still part of the artist. When it’s in the gallery, it’s a commodity”
Vincent’s memoir offers insight into the art world and a somewhat possessive view of a friend. In the background are other artists from Randall’s circle who have different yet also close relationships with the man. Such is the nature of friendship but in presenting it in this way the reader is challenged to consider how well anyone can know another however close they may be, or wish to to be.
Vincent suggests that Randall despised those he relied upon for his fame and fortune, and that he often treated his friends little better. As the reader learns of the artist’s relationship with his wife and son this picture is revealed as somewhat skewed. Perhaps, as with art, each person sees only their own interpretation, coloured by what they are educated to expect.
The writing is deft and provides a fascinating, original and highly readable story. Then there is the ending. This left me wondering if the author had played me as his protagonist was wont to do. Either it is clever and I am not, or this questionning is the point. However I choose to interpret, I am frustrated that I could not complete the circle. Despite my lack, this is a recommended read.
August 20, 2014
This alternative history take on the YBA movement born in the late 1980s and subsequent fallout is courageous, imaginative and wholly believable. It’s also terrific fun.
I actually wish some bits were true.
The premise is enticing – Young British Artists, led by a character called Randall – are shaking up and seducing London’s art establishment. Damien Hirst was around in the early days, but a lethal combination of train + alcohol took him out of the frame.
The story is told by an observer, Vincent. Much like Stingo in Styron’s Sophie’s Choice, Fanny in Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love or Nick in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Vincent's on the fringe.
This novel bristles with character and characters. The former manifests itself in superb set pieces such as the artistic boat intervention on the Great Day of Art, where the reader can feel both sides of the tension. Aggrieved audience and guerrilla artists, both glad they were there because they needed each other.
The characters, many of them real people, are deftly drawn, suggesting depths and tangents with one tiny stroke. Randall himself is a massive personality who looms across the present narrative (after his death) with equal presence as he does the past.
Vincent's arrival in New York, as one of the trustees of the phenomenally successful Randall (deceased), triggers a legacy neither he nor anyone else had expected. Randall’s last laugh.
The book is as colourful, ambitious and as unpredictably expansive as its eponymous hero. It takes in art’s awkward relationship with sponsorship, the peculiar effects of the observer on the observed (refractions and reflections intensified in the video made by Randall’s son Josh), and the impossibility of maintaining rebellion against the establishment once it's been embraced.
There are some perfectly crafted lines, which post 1990s, seem instant soundbites.
“The danger of success is that you fail to grow in proportion to it.”
“He had one of those severe, northern European faces that seem to say: you’re enjoying yourself now, but soon it will be winter.”
"The sight and sound of waves on the shore at night always seemed to her obscene, uncanny... as if they were proof that the unconscious mind lived on after death."
So much entertaining and thoughtful detail form the background that I already know I must re-read for more of the subtle references I missed. Sunshines, super-heroes and The Painted Grape – do we admire them as art, or acknowledge the verisimilitude to reality? In this case, I’d say both.
I actually wish some bits were true.
The premise is enticing – Young British Artists, led by a character called Randall – are shaking up and seducing London’s art establishment. Damien Hirst was around in the early days, but a lethal combination of train + alcohol took him out of the frame.
The story is told by an observer, Vincent. Much like Stingo in Styron’s Sophie’s Choice, Fanny in Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love or Nick in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Vincent's on the fringe.
This novel bristles with character and characters. The former manifests itself in superb set pieces such as the artistic boat intervention on the Great Day of Art, where the reader can feel both sides of the tension. Aggrieved audience and guerrilla artists, both glad they were there because they needed each other.
The characters, many of them real people, are deftly drawn, suggesting depths and tangents with one tiny stroke. Randall himself is a massive personality who looms across the present narrative (after his death) with equal presence as he does the past.
Vincent's arrival in New York, as one of the trustees of the phenomenally successful Randall (deceased), triggers a legacy neither he nor anyone else had expected. Randall’s last laugh.
The book is as colourful, ambitious and as unpredictably expansive as its eponymous hero. It takes in art’s awkward relationship with sponsorship, the peculiar effects of the observer on the observed (refractions and reflections intensified in the video made by Randall’s son Josh), and the impossibility of maintaining rebellion against the establishment once it's been embraced.
There are some perfectly crafted lines, which post 1990s, seem instant soundbites.
“The danger of success is that you fail to grow in proportion to it.”
“He had one of those severe, northern European faces that seem to say: you’re enjoying yourself now, but soon it will be winter.”
"The sight and sound of waves on the shore at night always seemed to her obscene, uncanny... as if they were proof that the unconscious mind lived on after death."
So much entertaining and thoughtful detail form the background that I already know I must re-read for more of the subtle references I missed. Sunshines, super-heroes and The Painted Grape – do we admire them as art, or acknowledge the verisimilitude to reality? In this case, I’d say both.
July 30, 2014
I think there are a few problems with this book.
It is hard to satirise something which is completely ridiculous in the first place. The 'shocking' artworks just aren't when compared with existing art - although perhaps I am biased having seen the Pop Life exhibition at the Tate Modern a few years back, complete with close-ups of Jeff Koons' todger.
It's a book about a bloke who is a bit of a knob, described in self-conscious detail by the most boring person in his circle.
The great dilemma at the centre of the present day strand of the narrative just isn't that interesting.
I enjoyed reading it, it's clever and cheeky (maybe too clever at the expense of being entertaining?) and it seemed to building to an exciting crescendo at the end. It didn't though, it ended leaving me frustrated that I'd stuck with it until that point.
It is hard to satirise something which is completely ridiculous in the first place. The 'shocking' artworks just aren't when compared with existing art - although perhaps I am biased having seen the Pop Life exhibition at the Tate Modern a few years back, complete with close-ups of Jeff Koons' todger.
It's a book about a bloke who is a bit of a knob, described in self-conscious detail by the most boring person in his circle.
The great dilemma at the centre of the present day strand of the narrative just isn't that interesting.
I enjoyed reading it, it's clever and cheeky (maybe too clever at the expense of being entertaining?) and it seemed to building to an exciting crescendo at the end. It didn't though, it ended leaving me frustrated that I'd stuck with it until that point.
April 3, 2015
There are two big difficulties with writing a story about a ‘great artist’, particularly a visual one: The first is in ascribing the proper language to describing the magnificent works of art themselves. It’s not enough to just say they’re great. The second is to create something that not only could feasibly be of its time but could elicit the kind of reactions it does in the story. Fortunately, Gibbs has the skill to pull both elements off. Randall’s work is part Hirst, part Koons with a dash of the Chapman brothers for good (and seriously upsetting) measure.
You can read the full review here.
http://bibliodaze.com/2015/04/review-...
You can read the full review here.
http://bibliodaze.com/2015/04/review-...
November 9, 2014
A very entertaining, thought-provoking read. Reminded me of Bolaño. I know absolutely nothing about contemporary art and this book was a fascinating introduction. I'll certainly never think about the color yellow in quite the same way again. I especially loved the central question that the book kept circling around: "Is there any art in here, or does it just look like art? And is there a difference?"
July 20, 2014
Rarefied but potentially interesting subject, let down by flabby storyline, thin characterisation and overwrought, self-conscious prose. In short, not unlike a fairly typical self-published novel.
March 27, 2015
The first part was quite intriguing - London and the rise of a conceptual artist in the 90s- but the last section in the US about his wife and son rather dragged.
April 13, 2016
A very difficult book to rate. Parts of it frustrated me, parts of it I loved. I will likely decide more later...
November 16, 2015
Review to follow...
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews