Timed to coincide with the run- up to the general election History is Now looks at life in Britain since World War Two, delving into specific periods of cultural history since 1945 through the eyes of 7 major artists.
John Akomfrah, Simon Fujiwara, Roger Hiorns, Hannah Starkey, Richard Wentworth, and Jane and Louise Wilson have each curated sections of the exhibition. Using 250 objects from newspapers, films, photographs to military artifacts chosen by the artists, the exhibition seeks to gather various curatorial ‘takes’ on UK culture, politics and media over the past 70 years.
Artworks on show include those by notable British artists such as Tony Cragg, Gilbert and George, Barbara Hepworth, Damien Hirst, David Hockney, Ryan Gander, Henry Moore, Hayley Newman, and Martin Parr.
This publication pulls together each artists exhibition section combined with commissioned essays, stories and poems from Adrian Forty, Daniel Fujiwara, Charlotte Higgins, Jackie Kay, David Alan Mellor and Cliff Lauson. As election fever grips the UK, History Is Now invites us to challenge, question and remember changes in British society.
Exhibition at Hayward Gallery, London, 10 February – 26 April 2015, which is part of Southbank Centre’s Changing Britain 1945 – 2015 festival, from 30 January – 9 May 2015.
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image credit: Henry Grant, Londoners relax on Tower Beach, History Is Now: 7 Artists Take On Britain, 1952.