Peter Kennard: Unofficial War Artist

Interesting exhibition at the Imperial War Museum looking at the work of political artists Peter Kennard.

Like another show I’ve written about tonight this exhibition reminded me of my university days in the early 80s as many of the images came from magazines and newspapers of that time. I’d never thought about the artists behind them before and had just assumed they had been created by the papers themselves. The works from this time were collages of images grouped to me a political point. These were displayed in a great archive room with had original collages on the wall with copies of the ways they had been used in a display cabinet in the middle and in flip displays of posters.

Other rooms concentrated on various projects. I loved one which combined “The Reading Room” from 1997, which consisted of lecterns with smudged faces on the financial pages of newspapers, with Newspapers from 1994, again using the financial pages but this time with drawings of hands clawing at them and fraying the paper.

The images which confronted you at the start were very powerful. Large, long canvases with torn medal ribbons and the medal replaced by dead and wounded civilians, hooded captives and military equipment.

Closes on 30 May 2016.

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