ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
On the warpath
HELEN MERCER casts an experienced eye over an ambitious exhibition that nevertheless contains painful gaps
WHAT'S CHANGED? (L to R) Alexis Hunter, The Marxist Wife Still Does The Housework, 1978/2005; Stella Dadzie’s Motherland, 1984
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
MICK McSHANE rubs shoulders with Mod legend Steve Craddock and joins in with the joyous Glasgow choir
DENNIS BROE sifts out the ideological bias of the newest TV series offerings, and picks out what to see, and what to avoid
Women in Revolt! Art and Activism 1970-1990
Tate Britain, London
THIS is a significant, high profile and very political exhibition presenting “two decades of art as provocation, protest and progress.”
Chronologically, starting with the first women’s liberation conference in Britain in 1970, it spans second and third wave feminism (the first wave being the suffrage movement of the early 20th century). It ends somewhat arbitrarily in 1990 with a note on the commercialisation of art and the marginalisation of “artists engaged in socially motivated practices.”
For many of us caught up in the debates of the women’s movement in the 1970s the questions the exhibition raises retain much of their fascination and the diversity, awareness, experimentation and rawness of the output is nostalgic and heady. The exhibition is large, detailed and richly repays a visit.
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