Art - Small Collections

The Small Collections Room

Ruth Claxton and Andrew Wilson

22 Oct 2011 - 05 Feb 2012

Ruth Claxton
Postcards

Ruth Claxton takes souvenir postcards of figurative paintings from art history and intricately reworks them by cutting into the surface and tearing away sections. Religious icons, peasants and mythological figures take on an otherworldly presence as their eyes sprout laser-like beams, revealing the focus of their gaze. Figures appear blinded by structures of torn paper, while faces are masked or obscured. Each mass reproduced postcard of an original artwork is carefully turned back into an original artwork again.

Andrew Wilson
Circa 1970

Circa 1970 brings together a small group of documents that demonstrate the diversity of Britain’s countercultural protest movements between 1968 and 1978. By pulling out the drawers in two of our cabinets you reveal the interconnected facets of protest during that ten year period. All of the movements helped to bring about political, social and cultural change.

The contents of the cabinets illustrate the start of the women’s liberation movement, the first manifesto of the Gay Liberation Front, the occupation of Hornsey Art College in May 1968, the organisation of London’s famous anti-Vietnam demonstration in October 1968, the arrest of the Angry Brigade, the rise of punk rock, the escapades of King Mob – and the first stirrings of conceptual art itself.