I was not surprised by your request to be removed from my electronic-mail list, “Let’s Make Art.” It goes without saying that I will honor your wish. In fact, I have already done so, which is why I am using the trusted Royal Mail to write to you one more time. However, you surprised me with your accusation of hectoring. Upsetting and annoying, hopefully. Ranting and raving, perhaps. Haranguing, conceivably. But hectoring? Hectoring is about swaggering. It is about intimidating and bullying by personal pressure. It is about power over others, real or imaginary. Now, do you feel intimidated or bullied by me? Does anyone else at the Tate? Hardly, you must admit. I am not a threat. At best, I am a nuisance to those in power. It is you and others at the institution behind you who can intimidate. You can do it even by suggesting intimidation and bullying on someone else’s part. Come to think of it, is this perchance what you are trying to do to me?

Addendum I (September 16, 2000)

Today I received a reply from Nick, dated September 14. As Monty Python would put it, the tone of his letter is rather conciliatory, which I must say I appreciate. Here goes:

Thank you for your letter of September 6. If I had wished to intimidate or bully, I would have copied my response to all your recipients. I chose rather to copy it only to those who have responded directly to you on the Tracey Emin issue. I hope you will appreciate that I have no wish to threaten, merely to withdraw for a period.

I responded immediately, in the same spirit:

Thank you very much for your letter, and especially its tone. However, if you look again through my carefully-worded letter, you will notice that the “you” I use in the key sentence does not necessarily refer to you in person, or you as the personification of the Tate, but also to some people in your institution who have previously written to me. Of course, I am referring to Andrew Brighton, who actually copied everyone on my list and then failed to respond to my carefully-worded response to his cavalier accusation. Given the power of the Tate, he has acted precipitously, to say the least. To my amusement, many people on my list followed Andrew with requests to be dropped from further communications. Among these are a number of important figures from the art world—like Marian Goodman and Sadie Coles, for example—some of whom may not have wished to run afoul of the mighty Tate. A certain Charlotte Schepke from the Agency Gallery even threatened me with the law if I did not take them off my list. By the way, let me cite this law for possible future use: Electronic Communications Privacy, Amendment to the Data Protection Act 1998. For greater impact, Frau Schepke used the upper case, too. The way things are turning, this law may come handy to the Tate in the turbulent years to come.

To the point? Funny? Visionary? Well, I dare say so on all three counts. Once again, I am far from a modest fellow, as everyone already knows all too well.

Addendum II (September 28, 2000)

Another letter from Nick arrived in this morning’s mail. I did not expect it, and I was thus quite delighted to receive it. He begins by thanking me for my letter of September 16. He continues:

I appreciate your concern about Andrew’s response, but I think that most of the recipients [of your postcards, R.B.] will be well aware that Andrew is his own man and certainly does not represent Tate [sic] as an institution. I am not sure, for instance, whether he even knows Marian Goodman and probably Sadie Coles only slightly.

By the way, it is wonderful to see the Tate spelled without the definite article, an innovation only recently introduced on advice of an advertising firm. Perhaps it is time to drop the definite article when referring to Hayward, Whitechapel, Serpentine, and a few other leading galleries, as well.

Back to my correspondence with Nick, though. Once again, I responded immediately. After thanking him for his letter of September 25, as well as telling him that it is always a pleasure to correspond with him, which it definitely is, I return to my argument:

I do not wish to exhaust you with fine points, but I must say that I find it implausible that the recipients of my postcards are aware that Andrew is his own man rather than someone who works for Tate Modern and thus perforce represents it in some sense of the word. One way or another, his actions do carry the weight of the institution behind him even when he is acting on his own. Mind you, I had no complaint about any of this, but I only wished to point out that the charge of bullying made more sense in Andrew’s case than in my own. As to the effect of his action, it is impossible to tell who among my recipients was swayed by Andrew’s careless words. The art world is full of hypocrites and sycophants, and I would not be surprised that some of them found their way onto my electronic-mail list, as well.

I closed my letter with an offer to close our correspondence on this particular point: “As far as I am concerned, my spat with Andrew is behind us.” Nick is a busy man, and it makes little sense to occupy him with matters like this one any longer. Besides, there will be more important things to discuss in the future.

Addendum III (October 10, 2000)

I circulated this piece, including the last addendum, only yesterday. Billy Childish responded within minutes: “I’m surprised you are pandering to Sir Nick, who seems to be quite arrogant and is responsible for promoting complete rubbish as art.” I responded within minutes, as well:

In my defense, I can only repeat the last sentence of my second addendum: I am saving Nick for bigger and better things. And I mean it. If you wish, he is good at what he does. Very good. To use Dostoevsky’s term, he is the Grand Inquisitor of the art world here and elsewhere. Nick will play that rôle well, I am sure. In some sense, we need him. We need someone of his size in the other corner of the ring, as it were. I am doing my best to keep him engaged in the meanwhile. And that is why I may sometimes appear to be pandering to him.

Today I found Billy’s reply, which was sent yesterday:

Your analogy to the Grand Inquisitor is perfect. I agree, but we must speak from our hearts. I am always saying to Charles [Thomson, R.B.] that the ends don’t justify the means. We must offer better and we must proclaim it. There will be a new spirituality in life and art, and we should be careful about dancing with the Devil, no matter how much fun it may be.

Then he added a post scriptum: “Your standing up for yourself with old Nick was excellent. Please do it for me when the time comes.” My response follows:

I am glad we are in agreement on Nick and on what is to be done. As for standing up for you with the Grand Inquisitor when the time comes, you have my word. By the way, I am casting for Jesus. Interested?

The last bit may sound ironical, but it is not. Billy does speak from the heart. He does believe that art ought to serve a higher or better purpose. This is where we agree. Indeed, the last bit of our correspondence on this score reflects is about this very point. “I like your humor,” he wrote, “but you know that I am quite serious on the matter of soul searching.” I reassured him immediately: “I know, I know. Don’t worry.” With some luck, we may indeed do something together. I can only hope that that something would usher a new spirituality in life and art.

Addendum IV (October 31, 2000)

There is nothing of substance to add here, but there are a couple of humorous things that complete the story quite nicely. After all, the story needs a fitting end. To begin with, Nick’s secretary, Lynn Murfitt, sent me on October 10 a very polite letter addressing me as Professor Bon, acknowledging safe receipt of my letter of September 28, and informing me that she should ensure that Nick sees it at the earliest opportunity when he returns to the office on October 17. I was delighted by the whole thing. Anyway, Nick apparently agrees with me that my spat with Andrew does not deserve any additional correspondence. Otherwise, his letter would have been with me by now.

The second humorous thing is even funnier. I bumped into Andrew Brighton at the opening of the Turner Prize show on October 24. Actually, I spotted him from some distance and took a bee-line toward him wearing the biggest grin I could muster. He was talking quietly with another fellow. “How are you doing?” I slapped Andrew’s shoulder. “Oh,” he looked at me blankly, “hi.” Then he turned back to the other fellow. “See you later!” I exclaimed happily and departed. In terms of the polite society, he had snubbed me. Alternatively, he was simply baffled by my incongruous behavior. Later on, every time I would spot him in the crowd, I would wave at him or stick my thumb up victoriously. And I would keep grinning.