Goodbye London. Radical Art and Politics in the Seventies

“Their crisis - our jobs” declares a poster in bold letters, campaigning against unemployment and for real work. But this poster is not contemporary. It is more than thirty years old, part of a radical social eruption that shook British society and ended with Margaret Thatcher and the birth of Neo-Liberalism. The exhibition ‚Goodbye London‘ highlights many issues that are relevant today, or always relevant, in a complex exposition on politics, life and art that reflects the experience of living through a profound crisis.

Sombre photographs by Jon Savage and Homer Sykes show entire neighbourhoods of London that stood empty due to speculation, but also document the development of growing protest movements that generated new forms of solidarity. In addition to the squatting movement, the exhibition looks at the gay movement, feminism, industrial disputes and solidarity with international liberation struggles.

Against the background of economic decline in Britain, a vibrant art scene developed in the capital, creatively exploiting the empty factories and warehouses. A collective was established in Tolmers Square, north London, that worked with activist groups to print posters as part of their political work. Artists such as Peter Kennard, referring to the visual aesthetic of John Heartfield, responded directly on the international political stage with collages and photographs. Margaret Harrison and Jo Spence, with the Hackney Flashers Women’s Photography Collective, took feminist positions. The video artist David Hall dissected the militance of the media, Victor Burgin used the aesthetics of advertising to analyze the far-reaching consequences of an unequal balance of political power. Derek Jarman’s early 16-mm films strike a different tone. They point with their aesthetically charged images to his later films, translating homosexual desire into a violently beautiful visual language. The performances of Stuart Brisley embody a contemporary counter-aesthetic, in which the artist exposes the existential borderlines of continuous, total isolation.

The exhibition shows the potential that can develop from a crisis, and the possibilities and limits of radicalization, highlighting the artistic positions of a politically engaged art scene in London that have been until now, at least in Germany, largely unknown.

A small publication with texts by Boris von Brauchitsch and Jule Reuter accompanies the exhibition (48pp, in German and English) ISBN: 978-3-938515-36-5.