Monday 17 October 2022

Radical Landscapes, Mead Gallery

Thought I’d share a few pics from the Radical Landscapes exhibition at Warwick University in the Warwick Arts Ctr Mead Gallery. I'd been looking forward to seeing this for some time, having picked up the brochure at the Liverpool Tate just before it opened,

The exhibition is as much about contested ownership of land, of being there and claiming a stake, as it is metaphors of depth and spiritual connection with land. The two are intertwined. There was a distinct feel of not belonging, of having to tussle and fight for space to stand, felt across gender, race and class. Also little reference to our greater ecosystem and not much reference to a missing species embeddedness - but human aloofness from environment is usual, if surprising in this context. 

The disconnection between culture and environment is not overtly referred to. Eco-breakdown was only a direct subject of 3 of all the works, and then oddly curated in connection with late 20C nuclear fears and I agree with the negative Guardian article which lamented a missing contemporary aspect. Maybe that was more visible in the truncated selection that made it here from Liverpool, but perhaps it was also lost in an attempt to produce a survey of 20C attitude to landscape. 

It was still good to see and I'm glad I went. Good to see the photo of the Kinder Scout mass tresspass and, in the flesh, Ithell Colquhoun’s painting Attributes of the moon as a portrait of the landscape as strong and feminine is compelling. 

Sadly, the two new commissions didn’t make it from the Liverpool Tate to Warwick Uni. Nor did Ruth McEwan’s living calendar of plants Back to the Fields, which I would haved loved to have seen.

A few images of the Mead Gallery Radical Landscapes exhibition are below: