Hayward Gallery |10 February – 26 April 2015
Admission: Standard entry £10.90
Seven artists reflect on British cultural life from 1945 to the present day.
As the Second World War neared its conclusion, Britain approached a watershed moment. The post-war world would be a very different place, and Britain’s economy, still labouring under outdated Victorian notions of industry, would struggle to compete in the new global market.
One month after V-E Day, the recently founded Council of Industrial Design announced an exhibition to reflect on Britain’s past industrial successes and create a blueprint for its future. Titled ‘Britain Can Make It’, the exhibition was distinguished by a 13-foot plaster egg at its entrance – a reference to one of the exhibition’s central exhibits, Misha Black’s ‘Birth of an Egg Cup’, but also symbolic of the planned rebirth of British industry for a brave new era. Seven decades later, the UK finds itself on the brink of another turning point, with new questions and new uncertainties.
Simon Fujiwara
Today’s Britain isn’t post-war, but post-recession, post-riot, post-referendum. In the lead up to the 2015 general election, the Hayward Gallery has taken inspiration from the Council of Industrial Design’s exhibition for a new show reflecting on key moments in British culture since the end of the Second World War.
Seven artists – Richard Wentworth, John Akomfrah, Jane and Louise Wilson, Hannah Starkey, Roger Hiorns and Simon Fujiwara – have each been invited to curate a ‘chapter’ of the exhibition, selecting artworks and objects that capture pivotal events from the last 70 years, from the emergence of the surveillance state to the mad cow disease epidemic. – Art Fund
020 7960 4200
www.southbankcentre.co.uk/hayward
Opening Times:
Mon, 12noon – 6pm
Tue, Wed, Sat, Sun, 10am – 6pm
Thu, Fri, 10am – 8pm