Tate-britain

I have mixed feelings about this show. On the one hand, I like that there are depictions of working class Britain on display and I feel that it is right that these paintings are considered part of the British cultural canon. I also like that a lot of these paintings represent large gatherings of people, which are absent from a lot of what we might call the mainstream of art.

Today I went with a friend to see Tate Britain's "Art Under Attack" show. It's an interesting, if uneven, affair that entertains but doesn't quite succeed in everything it attempts to do. The big word that you learn is iconoclasm: the act of attacking an object believed to represent particular beliefs. The show splits into two parts: ideological acts of iconoclasm committed against works of art in Britain and the work of British artists who embrace iconoclasm as a means for making art. The first half (comprising more than half of the show - because I lump together two of the shows sections "Religion" and "Politics" into this half) is more interesting and successful than the second ("Aesthetics").