To rescue Kahlo from the clutches of the corporate art market, we need to acknowledge the overt and covert political dimensions of the work, demands GAVIN O’TOOLE
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Exhibition: Designed to promote protest
A new exhibition in Glasgow shows how graphic art is taking a distinctly radical turn in response to political events, says its curator NEIL MCGUIRE
If you can see past the relentless commodification you will be rewarded by enormously powerful work, suggests JENNY MITCHELL
CHRIS SEARLE revels in the one-off collaboration between an American polymath and a British Muslim, and detects the presence of their revolutionary forebear
GORDON PARSONS revels in an ebullient production of Shakespeare’s magical comedy
BRENT CUTLER welcomes a thoughtful analysis of the Erdogan regime, viewed through the evolving history of a neighbourhood in Istanbul
GORDON PARSONS regrets the price, but is dazzled by an outstandingly ambitious study of the way art restoration in particular, and culture in general was weaponised by the Nazis
It's Not Very Nice That: Graphic Design And Politics is a slice through contemporary, politically engaged graphic design which highlights the way designers are currently exploring, documenting and responding to recent political events.
While it would be easy to connect much of what they're producing with recent political upheavals from Occupy Wall Street to Tahrir Square, a main focus of the exhibition is to look at the different ways in which graphic design engages with these situations and it does so through the social, economic, cultural and technological contexts within which designers themselves are working.
The exhibition came about in response to the graphic designers of the internet-based Deterritorial Support Group, named in "homage" to the London Metropolitan riot police unit the Territorial Support Group.
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