Andrew Graham-Dixon on an exhibition of British political art in Coventry
OUTSIDE the gallery, a bleak concrete plaza echoes to the am-plified cawing of birds, possibly vultures; above, fastened to the front of the building, a scaffolding crucifix throngs with twisted fig-ures, wound in coils of barbed wire. Philip McFadden's Nearly at the Gates of Hell makes a suitably depressing introduction to a de-pressing, and sadly mediocre, exhibition of British political art: "State of the Nation", at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum in Coventry.
Inside, you come across Graham Ashton's Dumb Reminders, a trio of dinghies cast adrift on the gallery floor — the first of these vessels is freighted with the limbs of a dismantled mannequin, which in the context suggests some kind of metaphor for the plight of modern Britain. Pre-Raphaelite subtitles hover in the mind — "The Rudderless Nation", perhaps. They don't hover long, since this show quickly dispels any lingering uncertainties concerning its politics. On the stairs leading up to the main galleries, an abysmal pair of caricatures, signposted "The Maggie and Ronnie Show" (just in case you don't know what Maggie and Ronnie look like), flap their hinged mouths in silent, parodie unison.
Nearby, a video drones on in a state of near-catatonic paranoia, opining that nuclear power stations are strategically placed in areas of high unemployment, and comparing the recent, much-publicised court order for the sterilisation of a handicapped girl with Hitler's racist programmes for selective breeding. It's all numbingly familiar, crude agit¬prop, but that doesn't matter here, where the whole point is ar¬tistic solidarity — rather than originality — in the face of Thatcherism. "State of the Nation", a title which suggests po-litical neutrality, turns out to be a misnomer: the exhibition has "Sod you Maggie" written all over it.
The decor...
