Modern Moral Matters

The Richard Hamilton exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery is a ten-minute job. Wander round, gasp at the banality of it, wander out.

Through its fragmentation of images, manipulation of space and reference to different styles and genres, Hamilton’s work interrogates the representations that surround us. Yet his analysis of the image is counterbalanced by an underlying, allegoric lyricism, through which he reinvigorates the genres of portraiture and history painting.

This survey of Hamilton's political works also explores in depth the artist's working processes and the varied ways he uses photographic material. It investigates his continued interest in creating multiples of a single, iconic image as both a mirror and a critique of the visual overload created by the media.

Right.

The show concentrates on Hamilton's political stuff: it's titled Modern Moral Matters. To judge from the works on display, Hamilton has never yet found a political cause he couldn't reduce to a simplistic black/white. Northern Ireland - republicans good, Prods and British bad; the Middle East - Israel bad; Thatcher - bad bad BAD. And the one that seems to be gathering much of the attention: "Shock and Awe", with Tony Blair as...a cowboy! As Martin in the Margins notes in his post, suitably titled Schlock and Awe, this is "less subtle than Steve Bell on a bad day", a "trite encapsulation of a tired political stereotype". But then there's Times art critic Waldemar Januszczak:

This exhibition does not, therefore, confirm him as the most important British artist currently at work. It reveals him to be much more than that. 

Well....

One whole room - and if you know the Serpentine you'll know that it's not a large gallery, so this is a major part of the exhibition - is entirely devoted to variations on the theme of his Swingeing London 67, a blurred photo of Mick Jagger and art dealer Robert Fraser covering their faces as they're driven away from court at Chichester in the back of a limo, handcuffed together. It was the Redlands bust, when the Stones were done for drugs: a big deal then, but barely a memory now. Its significance, such as it was, lay in the general revulsion felt by the public at the police over-reaction, exemplified by William Rees-Mogg's one claim to fame as a journalist with his recycling of the Alexander Pope quotation "Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?" in a Times editorial; all of which resulted in Jagger and Richards being given conditional discharges on appeal. So, far from being an iconic representation of the repressive forces of a fascist police state, this marked a moment in the history of the Sixties, like the Lady Chatterley trial, when the forces of liberalism were actually winning. The image, as a representation of the times, did its work back in 1967. It's more than a little tired to resurrect it now, over 40 years on. It is, I suppose, Hamilton's attempt at some Warhol-type exploration of the power of the image: "both a mirror and a critique of the visual overload created by the media". But if the image doesn't resonate very much anyway - and here it doesn't - repetition is merely going to emphasise that point. Or lack of point.

So yes, ten minutes: maybe five. But it's odd how nowadays you can spend your whole life making a profession of being a rebel, and be universally praised and lionised by the cultural establishment as a result. And be still revolting at the age of 88. God knows what Rimbaud would have made of it.

Comments

[TDK]

"It was the Redlands bust, when the Stones were done for drugs: a big deal then, but barely a memory now."

Not sure about that - it certainly made Mars bars more famous.