Arts ahead: May 9

COVENTRY EXHIBITION
What's the Meaning of This?
John Yeadon at 70
Newsroom Gallery, CET Building
Corporation St
May 18-June 15
IN THIS exhibition, John Yeadon looks back to his 1984 Dirty Tricks exhibition at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum in Coventry and compares this work with his recent paintings. Dirty Tricks was a controversial exhibition of his grotesque realist, large allegorical “history paintings” which provoked both Tory outrage and acclaim from everyone else.
At the high point of Aids paranoia and gay “blame,” Yeadon's “in-yer-face” paintings challenged preconceptions of sexuality and society. This exhibition compares those paintings with his recent work and asks whether things changed. Is society more tolerant, open-minded and liberal at a time when Coventry approaches the year of City of Culture? Is it more enlightened and less provincial?
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