Che Guevara Meets Today’s Pretty Poster Boys
05/07/2011

I blame that poster of Che Guevara – revolutionary hero of a million student bedrooms and sweaty tee-shirts – for encouraging arts undergraduates to pose as self-appointed reformers of society.

Of course, every generation believes it’s going to change the world and reinvent it in its own image.  But at least in my day we did it with a little more gusto and conviction than the current crop of would-be radicals.

These thoughts are prompted by the exhibition ‘Information as Currency’, showing at the Book Club, East London until July 31, which encourages artists and designers to ‘engage with social and political issues’. It aims ‘to articulate some true 21st century concerns within the gallery space’ – specifically the WikiLeaks releases and exposes of recent years.

The theme offers plenty of scope for vigorous argument and impassioned campaigning, but judging by the work on show, this is a wasted opportunity. It is, to be kind, not up to the job.

For example, one series of artworks references a film that shows American Apache helicopters opening fire on a group of people in Baghdad. As one of the helicopters circles a wounded man, a crew member is heard to say ‘Come on buddy, all you gotta do is grab a weapon’. The exhibit displays this quote in a number of cool typefaces, which is all very well and good, but if you haven’t seen the film or don’t get the reference, its significance is completely lost.

Other works on display are frankly abstract and, to give them their due, quite stylish. They wouldn’t look out of place in the Tate Modern gift shop.  But then anyone who wants to engage with social and political issues has no business being pretty, polite and inoffensive.

Think of the artworks that have engaged with social and political issues in the past: Picasso’s Guernica or almost any of Graham Sutherland’s war paintings, and you’ll see what’s lacking here.  Political artwork should shock and awe as much as the events and issues it deals with.

Or if you want to go in for sloganeering, think of the great poster campaigns like ‘Labour isn’t working’, ‘For God’s Sake Care’ and ‘It takes 40 dumb animals to make a fur coat, but only one to wear one’. Agree with them or not, they were all powerful slogans designed to provoke a response.

The best way for an artist or designer to make their mark in this field is to do pro bono work for the charities or causes they feel most strongly about. Or, on the other hand, have the courage to refuse to work on accounts that offend their consciences, even if it costs them their job.
Now that really would be radical!