At ‘The Exhibition’
A new aesthetic movement that is vital, distinct, cool, and forward-facing, while not abandoning the past, but taking it along for the ride.
For pictures of the art on display at this exhibition, scroll down to the bottom of this article.
From my younger days, and the tastes that come with such teenage naivete, I recall a story that took on a mythical nature as the years and decades passed.
The legend goes that, in 1976, the Sex Pistols played a show at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester. There was, figuratively, no one there. However, every one of those nobodies became a somebody; Ian Curtis and the future members of Joy Division were supposedly there, as were Morrissey and Johnny Marr; Mick Hucknell of Simply Red, Mark E. Smith of The Fall, it was put on by the Buzzcocks, and some even say that Bono was there.
Most of these supposed attendees were, in fact, elsewhere on that night; but the moral of the legend is the same. In the trajectory of an artistic movement, it is not a question of how many are in the room, but rather who is in the room.
That story, and the surrounding legend, was clear in my mind as I left the Fitzrovia Gallery in London, having witnessed what I knew to be the birth of a new aesthetic movement within the British Right. One that is vital, distinct, cool, and forward-facing, while not abandoning the past, but taking it along for the ride. The Exhibition.
On a personal note, I'd place it among the favoured nights of my adulthood, and one that I shall recall with the warmth of young love and idyllic trips abroad.
I was fortunate enough to be invited to the opening night, and stayed until the end, lingering with the artists and their loved ones. And we talked, and laughed, were serious and jolly. And as I drank possibly too much wine, and smoked to my heart's content, I felt what so few in our circles feel when adrift in the age of loneliness; a genuine camaraderie.
So often is it the case that we live double lives, behind assumed names and selected icons, sharing curated snapshots of our otherwise unsatisfactory lives, in jobs we dislike, but do anyway.
Underneath the baggage of modern life is a series of people, some more complex than others, with humours and virtues, vices and neuroses; yet this cannot be unleashed, or rather can only be unleashed to a certain extent, behind the pixel wall. In order for us to take our place in the pantheon of cultural history, where so many of us belong, this wall must be torn down, brick by brick. And with glee, I swung at my own brick, dislodging it with a thud upon the pavement.
I have written before, many times, about my qualms with the British Right. Firstly, that it is a wholly ineffective cultural or political force, because it has no vitality. It is simply uncool; and a movement, be it cultural or political, cannot succeed unless it is cool. The diagnosis is quite clear in my head, but the reasoning is not always there.
The Right, for the most part, is terminally online; which bears the progenies of paranoia, hostility, and victimisation of the self; an obsession with dimly-lit backrooms and pernicious malefactors supposedly pulling the strings. The Right is cripplingly aware that it is Right Wing; existing solely to be against the Left Wing. It is self-consciously fighting a battle with the perception of an omnipotent Liberal regime with the gusto and indignation of a downtrodden race, yet fighting with the foolery of the technologically inferior; the Seleucid Empire pitching battle with the Red Army.
This new movement, however, - the name of which I dare not coin for it is not mine to christen - possesses with it an air of self-motivation. This movement is not driven by what the 'wokies' are doing, nor is it concerned with such trivialities. It is a movement that does not shy away from the avant garde, the macabre, or the sordid. It is able to capture the human condition, even the blood and guts and entrails. It is not wrapped up in the trappings of trad; the stuffy, tweed-laden moral hectoring of the pure and virginal. Nor is it caught up in the low-hanging fruit of culture wars, medicinal liberty, or the politics of gender. It is an entirely positive vision.
I have very little understanding of the fine arts beyond what I know to be good and bad art. The art on display at The Exhibition was exceptional, for reasons that I haven't the faculties to explain. One can find magnificent odes to the peaks of form, haunting portraits and semi-portraits, otherworldly scenes, age-old mythos brought to life, horror and intrigue, all accentuated by the surgically delicate poetry of Columba.
What struck me, most profoundly about the Exhibition, and the retinue of craftsmen behind it, was the complete lack of overt politics. The objective of 'dissident' art is not to make Right Wing art, it is to make good art that isn’t left wing. In this, the art on display succeeded with a superlative ease.
What is reactionary about the show is the affront to the pretensions of contemporary art. Here, one can see masters at work, creating pieces of tomorrow that do not shock, but foster. One feels something that isn't disgust, or sadness, or disappointment, some buzzing sound that says all is not quite right in the world. It does not say 'there is depravity, here is some more'. Rather, this Motley crew of rag-tags and iconoclasts, without the backing of the Arts Council, the Saatchi Gallery, or the chattering class, created something rare. Something true, something good, and something beautiful.
Below are pictures of the art on display at The Exhibition, with Bournbrook’s Alexander Adams’s work included in the display. For more of Adams’s work, browse through Bournbrook Press, where some of his works may be purchased.
