RADICAL BRITISH ART IN THE 1970S: ART IN

CRISIS DURING A DECADE OF CRISES

John A. Walker © (2009)

(Cover image: Jordan in Derek Jarman’s film Jubilee (1978), reproduced courtesy

of the BFI; photographer Jean-Marc Prouveur.)

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Histories of visual culture in Britain during the 1960s abound but that of the 1970s –

despite several, nostalgic revivals of interest in the decade – is still neglected. The

neglect is unjust: in a list of the best British advertisements of the twentieth century,

complied by Campaign magazine in 1999, the top three dated from the 1970s. Such

has been the decade’s invisibility that it has been dubbed: ‘the undecade’, ‘the

decade that style or taste forgot’, and the critic Peter Fuller once wrote an essay that

asked: ‘Where was the art of the Seventies?’

After the decade ended, it was widely believed that no fine art of note had been
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produced, or that there had been no major movement/dominant style, simply a

condition of fragmentation and pluralism (itself a consequence of a paradigm shift

from modernism to post-modernism). It is certainly true that there were various

mini-movements and tendencies running in parallel rather than a single mainstream

or spirit of the age. However, in my view, what was new and significant about

contemporary art in Britain during the 1970s was its leftist repoliticisation

(including the impact of feminism and the gay movement), its attempt to reconnect

to society at large (even though this was not exclusive to Britain because similar

developments occurred in Germany and the United States). These developments

were evident by the middle of the decade after the rejection of minimal art and the

decline in influence of conceptual art. The latter had began in the mid-1960s and

reached its apogee in ‘The New Art’ exhibition held at the Hayward Gallery in 1972.

Christopher Booker, in a history of the 1970s, argued that it was a highly

important decade for three losses of faith: in the modern movement, the benefits of

technology and the ‘grand narrative’ of progress. Most radical artists had

reservations about modernism, especially the ‘modernist painting’ theory, a narrow

version associated with the American critic Clement Greenberg (see my essay on

Greenberg and his influence on the British), but they retained a belief in progress

because they thought a different kind of art could help build a better society. In this

respect, they continued the utopianism of the 1960s.

Because of their desire to rediscover a social role, radical artists rejected the

purely formalist view of art and began to stress the importance of subject

matter/content and social relevance/function. (New kinds of art gave rise to new

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subjects; for instance, feminist artists made works about housework and

menstruation; homosexual artists made art about the struggle for gay rights.)

However, it was not simply a question of representing politics because radical artists

steeped in the history of avant-garde art also realised that they had to address the

politics of representation, to perform work on representation. The result was two

varieties of political art: one depicted political events in a straightforward manner

or performed agit-prop functions; the second was self-reflexive regarding

representation and was, therefore, more complex and demanding. Thus, a conflict or

tension emerged between the demand for accessibility and political utility on the one

hand and the need for reflexivity on the other.

Cosey Fanni Tutti of Coum Transmissions, Press release leaflet for Prostitution

Exhibition, ICA London, October 1976. Photo courtesy of Cabinet, London.

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The label ‘political art’ became current but it had certain disadvantages: some

theorists argued that its use to designate a subcategory of art was misleading

because ‘all art was (already) political’. The label also embarrassed left-wing artists

because they feared it was simply the name of the latest art movement, one that was

destined to be replaced by a new ‘ism’ in a few years time.

Radical political artists and groups of the period included: Rasheed Araeen (from

Pakistan), Conrad and Terry Atkinson, Derek Boshier, Stuart Brisley, Victor

Burgin, the performance group COUM Transmissions, Rita Donagh, the Greenwich

and Wandsworth Mural Workshops, Margaret Harrison, Mary Kelly and John

Dugger (two Americans), Peter Kennard, Jamie Reid, Derek Jarman, Dan Jones,

John Latham and the Artist Placement Group, David Medalla (from the

Phillipines), Gustav Metzger, Jonathan Miles of the Poster/Film Collective, the

Public Art Workshop, Tony Rickaby, Michael Sandle, Jo Spence, John Stezaker,

Stephen Willats and the Womanpower group.

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Monica Sjoo of the Womanpower group, God giving birth, (1972). Oil on hardboard,

183 x122 cm. Anna Nordlander Collection. Skelleftea, Swede. Photo courtesy of the

artist and A. Nordlander.

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Michael Sandle, A Twentieth century Memorial, (1971-78). Sculpture - bronze on

painted wooden base. 5.7 m in diameter, 1. 4 m High. Photo Tate Britain.

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John Dugger, Chile Vencera banner in Trafalgar Square, London 1974. Photo

courtesy of the artist.

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Margaret Harrison, Rape, (1978) mixed media, main canvas 70 x 90 inches. Photo

courtesy of Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York.

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Jo Spence and Terry Dennett, Spence in the nude, middle aged, (1979). Photo

courtesy of Dennett and the Jo Spence Memorial Archive, London.

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Three interconnected ambitions recurred: first, to change art; second, to use that

new art to transform society; and third, to challenge and alter their relations of

production and art world institutions. Conservative artists and critics, of course,

poured scorn on these ambitions and defended the status quo. However, critics such

as Guy Brett, Rosetta Brooks, Richard Cork, Paul Overy, John Tagg and Caroline

Tisdall supported the radicals in their columns and by curating exhibitions such as

‘Art for Whom?’ and ‘Art for Society’.

John A. Walker, Capitalism Works, could you wish for anything more? Photomontage

(also issued as a poster) shown in the ‘Art for Society’ exhibition Whitechapel Art

Gallery, 1978. Collection of the Wolverhampton Art Gallery.

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Many of the new developments in art responded to the events and issues –

economic, ideological, political and social – of the period. For instance, work was

produced in response to the civil strife in Northern Ireland, strikes and the

imprisonment of trade unionists, the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, the 1977 battle of

Lewisham between anti-racists and the police, and the killing in 1979 of Blair Peach.

Art was open to external forces – it reflected society but it also reflected upon society

and influenced people’s ideas and behaviour; consequently, it was a minor social

force in its own right.

Rita Donagh, Bystander (a painting about events in Northern Ireland), (1977), Oil
and collage on canvas. Photo © the artist and Jerry Hardman-Jones
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Within the art world itself, what occurred was an often-acrimonious struggle

between various groups: traditionalists and formalists versus left-wingers and

feminists, abstractionists versus figurative artists, blacks versus whites,

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practitioners versus theorists and critics. These groups argued passionately about

the character, social function and future direction of art and its institutions. Even

those who shared a leftist political perspective indulged in factional disputes: there

were Anarchists, Labour party supporters, Maoists, Marxist-Leninists, Trotskyists

and every shade in between. Within feminism too there were at least three strands:

liberal, radical and socialist.

The decade was particularly notable for its intellectual ferment and ideological

struggles, its many conferences and public meetings, and for significant

developments in theory and criticism. Many radical artists wrote papers as often as

they made images or objects. In some instances, theory was not simply a discourse

developed by artists in parallel to making art objects but was itself imbricated in the

processes of production and consumption. For example, films such as Penthesilea

(1974) and Riddles of the Sphinx (1978) by Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen, two

independent filmmakers, writers and university lecturers, were described as

‘theoretical films’ because they were extensions of intellectual work the directors

had previously undertaken in the realms of cinema, feminism and psychoanalysis.

Peter Wollen and Laura Mulvey, Still from Riddles of the Sphinx (1977).
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While American art and criticism continued to influence certain British painters

and sculptors (primarily those associated with St Martin’s School of Art), the

radicals focused on national issues, such as immigrant labour and the Grunwick

strike, or, in the case of community artists, the people and concerns of inner city

areas.

Poster Film Collective, London. Poster in support of the Grunwick strikers, 1976 or

77.
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However, they also turned to Europe for inspiration: German artists such as Joseph

Beuys, Hans Haacke, John Heartfield and Klaus Staeck became influential. The

theoretical writings of the Frankfurt School philosophers (Walter Benjamin in

particular), the Situationists and French thinkers such as Roland Barthes and

Jacques Lacan were also significant. Thus, developments in fine art echoed those in

the social realm, that is, Britain joined the EEC during the 1970s. Even so,

international events were not completely ignored: critical art was made about events

in Chile, the Philippines, South Africa and Vietnam, and support given to liberation

struggles around the world.

The decade was also a period of intense self-reflection regarding the concept and

institutions of art, and the condition of British art: critiques were undertaken of art

criticism, art magazines, art education, state funding and private patronage,

galleries and museums, and the art market. Demands were made for more artists to

be represented on the visual arts panels of the Arts Council and for more women to

be included in exhibitions sponsored by the Council at the Hayward Gallery. When

dissatisfied with existing arts organisations, many artists founded their own.

Examples included: Camerawork, the Artists’ Liberation Front, the Artists’ Union,

Hackney Flashers and the League of Socialist Artists. (The proliferation of such

‘alternative’ and self-help organisations began in the late 1960s.)

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Camerawork magazine No 8. Special Lewisham issue 1977. British police guard

racists marching in Lewisham where they were confronted by crowds of anti-racists.

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To hold meetings and exhibitions, artists found and occupied new spaces in London

such as the Artists Meeting Place, The Gallery and the Communard Gallery. They

also established new magazines such as Artery and Block. Even painters opposed to

so-called ‘social functionalism’ were forced to turn to writing and to start their own

magazine: Artscribe.

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John A. Walker reading a variety of 1970s art magazines. Picture spread imitated

advertising imagery and appeared in the article ‘Internal memorandum’ , Studio

International, 192 (983) Sept-Oct 1976, pp. 113-18.

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The 1970s was a period of expanded media and materials: instead of pigment and

clay, many artists began using banners, bodily waste, books, concepts/language,

flags, film, mixed-media installations, mirrors, patchwork, performance,

photocopies, photography, photomontage, posters, the postal system, sound and

video.

Stuart Brisley, And for today nothing, (1972) Performance/Body art, Gallery House

London. Photo courtesy of the artist.

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As a result, traditional art forms such as painting and sculpture experienced identity

crises and were subject to critical analyses by both friends and enemies. Arguably,

the crises in the visual arts paralleled the ones afflicting Britain’s economy and

social order.

A recurrent challenge facing the radical artists was how to reach audiences beyond

the narrow confines of the art world, beyond the middle class, how to convince

political activists, local communities, campaigning groups, and workers in

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employment or on strike, that art could be a valuable additional resource or weapon

rather than merely an ornament or instrument of the Establishment.

Desmond Rochfort and David Binnington, The Public Art workshop. The

construction workers, (1976-77). Detail of mural on flyover, Royal Oak, Paddington,

London. Photo courtesy of the artists.

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Art that was partisan – that sided with the exploited or foregrounded the

experiences and needs of blacks, gays, the unemployed and women, for instance -

challenged the conventional wisdom that art transcends such divisions and is

universal in its appeal. Consequently, it was not simply a matter of increasing the

size of the audience for art, but of developing new forms of art appropriate to the

needs of underprivileged groups, ethnic minorities and subcultures. Attempts were

also made to enable ordinary people to represent themselves and to involve them in
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the creative process; hence the emergence of such tendencies as behavioural,

community and participation art.

Despite the problems of writing histories in terms of decades, what happened in

British art during the 1970s is worth recording because, while much of the new art

was crude or mediocre, there was a sustained and worthwhile attempt to renew its

social purpose. It was a period when idealistic artists and groups struggled to

impose their idea of what art was or ought to be.

Meeting of Artists' Placement Group led by John Latham (centre) and Joseph Beuys
(with hat) at Documenta VI, Kassel (1977). Courtesy Tate Archives © Edition
Staeck. Photo: Caroline Tisdall
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What occurred is fascinating in its own right and is still relevant today because so

many of its leading figures continue to practice, because so many younger artists
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have been influenced by what they achieved, and because the questions posed – ‘Art

for whom? Art for what social purpose?’ – remain pertinent.

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(This a summary of the contents of my book Left Shift: Radical Art in 1970s Britain

published by I.B. Tauris in 2002.)

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