16.05.1996

Art attack

Kevin Newton reviews 'Revolting Britain' (Viewpoint Galleries, Charlotte Street, Manchester)

Revolting Britain is an exhibition of contemporary photographs. Images of rioters and protesters, isolated yet part of an angry mass movement, hammer home the need for political union. The exhibition concentrates on popular and youth movements. All of the plates are accompanied by a quotation from a pop song. From the Rolling Stones and Bob Marley to REM and Talking Heads, each tries to capture the moment.

At Welling “in a moment of supreme irony”, a black policeman arrests an anti-racist demonstrator at the height of the disturbance. “Well, what am I supposed to do now?” reads the caption.

From summer solstice to M11 and Reclaim the Roads, this mishmash of images depicts the frustration and anger, as well as the joy and despair of struggle. However, the lasting idea that Revolting Britain leaves you with is one of urgency; urgency in the need to unite the forces of opposition around a programme and party capable of turning the tide irreversibly in favour of working people.

All the images indicate how Britain has failed to organise a mass, coherent campaign, not just against this government, but the very system in which it operates. The claim that direct action has grown out of the failure of organised political movements to prove effective is laid bare.

However, a deeper humanist angle, common to photographers such as Willy Ronnis, is missing from this exhibition.

Willy Ronnis’ work was in the strong French humanist tradition. In the 1930s and 40s he turned his lens to the social and political struggles that spanned Europe. He was a member of the Association des écrivains et artistes révolutionnaires, a group closely linked to the French Communist Party (PCF).

The Soviet Union had a major impact on visual arts at the time, especially photography which was being used as a social documentary.

Ronnis found much work among the left press of the day and started to exhibit his work regularly in the communist weekly Regards. The work from this period covered the Popular Front marches (1936), as well as the major strikes like Citroen (1938). After his return to Paris in 1944 he closely chronicled the growing social tension of strikes and lockouts which would lead France to the brink of a revolutionary situation and the expulsion of the CPF from government.

The works of Paul Stewart and Gary Trotter, exhibited in Revolting Britain, are both contrasting and entertaining pieces of art, whose stark images can only help foster questions about present-day realities and past events, but seem to have left a solution mysteriously out of reach.

They can be recommended not only to the politically active, but to the widest audience.

Kevin Newton