Re Your Crusade to Create Polemic: Art Epistolary

Dear Mac,
Thanks for taking the trouble to send me your prints and the precis for the Fergusson Award...plus my annotations, re;Hirst. Great News! But Mac, ... why stop there?? Why don't you apply for the Turner Prize as well?? You might get shortlisted at the very least-, and I'm told that shortlisting is even better than winning, because you then get some kudos for being part of it , while not having to suffer the total media dissection, (vivisection), of yourself and your work.
I read with interest the Hughes article; he is bang on re: Hirst , and the general mercantile, high end hype, pretention and widget commodification of the London and (international) art mafia. He certainly goes for the jugular, I've got one of his books on Goya, and i've always liked his confident prose style and astute observations of the visual arts in general.
Anyway, I'm in broad agreement with the general thrust of your crusade, but I have a few reservations about your perceptions of the so called "literal" and the so called "abstract", In effect, the danger that may be lurking in your syntax of a confusion between (surface style) or appearance, and (content or substance)...i.e. meaning, philosophy, narrative, content.
I strongly disagree that "Bellini, Durer,Rembrandt,Gericault and Ingres" are, as you say, "too literal" ; because I still assert that all visual 2d and 3d art (including photography)- is an abstraction from so called "reality" or the so called "literal", regardless of the particular surface style or superficial appearance of any work of 'art', including your "own style" or my "own style".
It is the collision of the perceptions of content, subject, meaning-(outside of the physicality) of a work.....on the part of both the artist and the viewing or critical audience of any particular historic period or
age, (and its manifestation therein), that holds a particular fascination for myself as a peripheral philosophe, lateral semiotician, and amateur, psychologist,sociologist, anthropologist, stroke, slash, add to that list (attentive listener and observer).... dare I run on? to add professional art practitioner and art educator?
Witness for example, the application of a strict canon of representational forms prescribed in the ancient Egyptian bas reliefs, tomb paintings and sculpture (before), the singular blip in the proceedings with the advent of the 'so called' Amarna 'style', of Akenaton and his mono-deist solar worship of Amun Ra......A real break with a precedent dogma in both concept, (religion) and 'style' or 'surface' approach to art-but ultimately, as oppressive and tedious as our own weariness with the stagnation a la Hirst, Emin,Starling- and their foisting of a prescriptive (almost purely concept based ethos), (but not entirely), now broadly stamped on the academies, markets and minds in the international "artworld".
Liking or not liking a particular style or surface look or appearance of a work is subjective, and comes down to any individuals personal taste or aesthetic awareness, or otherwise,- and is ultimately arbitrary in any historical period; random , and uncanny.
One can liken it to the sentiments all of us have experienced over the passage of years when looking back over old albums of changing clothing, fashions, over any number of decades and being appalled at (for example), flared bellbottoms, livid stripes, and mutton chop sideburns in the early 1970s, or( for that matter), protruding satin codpieces and big lacy neck ruffs for blokes in the late 1500s???
In the same vein, take wallpaper for example, we've all stripped off old wallcoverings to find other designs beneath that either make us ask, "what were they thinking??, to think this looked good!?", . And sometimes, we look back and think, 'gee, I prefer that earliest chosen layer of paper and the way it looks.... why did they ever get rid of it??'
Sorry to digress Mac, i'm just trying to illustrate that old saw known to the Romans, 'Degustibus non disputandum', there really is no accounting for taste.
However, don't think for a minute that I'm not on your side, just because we may disagree, doesn't mean I don't back your crusade 100%. I do back it , and I endorse it . The content, subject and narrative critique inherent in your themed ATTACK print is clear and BANG ON! And in the same breath , I can add that I admire your courage while not necessarily liking the aesthetic look of the thing. The substance , the heartfelt core is plainly there, and this is enough for me , the genuine approach is key , coupled with my personal knowledge of your working practice and long history in the field of printmaking.
Take heart, good onya! best of luck! I hope you win, and until next time , a fond ADIEU. BLUESTARS