Visual Arts

"What do you think an artist is? He’s a political being, constantly alive to heartrending, fiery, or happy events, to which he responds in every way. No, painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war, for attack and defense against the enemy."

Pablo Picasso

Wednesday, 05 December 2018 18:05

Hockney's Portrait of an Artist: A perfect expression of gross inequality

Written by Martin Gollan

in Visual Arts

Martin Gollan argues that what we see when we look at this Hockney painting is a perfect expression of the gross inequalities created by neoliberal capitalism. What do we see when looking at a painting which some has paid $90,312,500? This was the price paid a few weeks ago, for…

Saturday, 01 December 2018 13:59

Universal Credit: Apocalypse

Written by Martin Gollan

in Visual Arts

Unite Day of Action 1 December

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Tuesday, 27 November 2018 22:37

Universal Credit: It's not true!

in Visual Arts

Written by Martin Gollan

For Unite's Day of Action against Universal Credit, 1 December.

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Wednesday, 24 October 2018 09:24

Invisible Britain: Portraits of Hope and Resilience

in Visual Arts

Written by Mike Quille

Mike Quille reviews Invisible Britain: Portraits of Hope and Resilience, and interviews the editor, Paul Sng. Paul Sng’s films – Sleaford Mods, and Dispossession: The Great Housing Swindle – have explored the lives of working-class people who have been ignored, marginalised or demonised by mainstream media, and who are protesting…

Paul Sng Sleaford Mods Cultural democracy

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Wednesday, 17 October 2018 13:42

'The future of art hangs on the future of civilisation': The Artists' International and the Spanish Civil War

in Visual Arts

Written by Christine Lindey

Christine Lindey looks at the role of the Artists International Association in supporting the cause of the Spanish Republic. The early 20th century’s momentous upheavals politicised many people and artists were no exception. The mechanised carnage of the First World War, the 1920s Hunger Marches, the increased immiseration caused by…

International Brigade Clive Branson Betty Rea James Boswell Henry Moore

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Thursday, 13 September 2018 21:29

Public Art and Public Image in the World of the Spectacle

in Visual Arts

Written by Mike Templeton

Mike Templeton looks at the urban murals in Cincinnati, and argues that as the community of labour and co-operation has been destroyed by capitalism, so has the possibility for a meaningful and vital public art. Public art projects in the form of murals have become ubiquitous around the world. Follow…

Cincinnati Guy Debord

Monday, 20 August 2018 12:23

Al Nakba: Disaster

Written by Adam Shehada

in Visual Arts

Adam Shehada introduces one of his artworks. This drawing is called Al Nakba, which is the Arabic for Disaster. I drew it from a photograph, using pencil and charcoals on paper, My intention is to express the long history of steadfastness and suffering implied in the old Palestinian woman's wrinkles,…

Palestine

Monday, 23 July 2018 15:22

The Pity of War

Written by David Betteridge

in Visual Arts

David Betteridge visits an arts hub in Clydebank, where he views and reviews a beautiful and disturbing mosaic by Owen McGuigan. “My subject is War, and the pity of War. The poetry is in the pity.” Wilfred Owen wrote these often quoted words in a preface intended for his one…

Tuesday, 03 July 2018 16:23

Victims of Capitalism: Art in the Wake of World War One

Written by Christine Lindey

in Visual Arts

Christine Lindey reviews a new exhibition at Tate Britain, called Aftermath: Art in the Wake of World War One. It includes powerful, angry and sorrowful anti-war and anti-capitalist paintings, and some rarely shown, politically committed realism rooted in a socialist understanding of the capitalist greed which fuelled the carnage. An…

Aftermath Nash Grosz Dix