No Such Thing as Society 1980–1990

Rita Donagh, Long Meadow  1982

The conflict in the north of Ireland in the 1970s and 1980s saw violent acts by both Unionists and Republicans perpetrated in mainland Britain and Northern Ireland. One of the key sites during those times was the Maze Prison in County Antrim, formerly known as Long Kesh or ‘Long Meadow’, the title of Donagh’s painting. Paramilitary prisoners were housed in the eight prison ‘H Blocks’, projected by Donagh in perspective onto a square canvas, echoing the square plan of a single cell block. The aerial view and the subtle rendering of the light convey the feeling of an air raid.

Gallery label, September 2016

Sutapa Biswas, Kali  1983–1985

Kali documents a performance Biswas staged with Isabella Tracy. The artists play themselves and the characters Kali and Ravan from Hindu mythology. The film opens with an introduction from Biswas explaining that the characters of the performance enact a mythic struggle of good over evil. Kali represents a challenge to forces of ‘imperialism, cultural domination and exploitation of the East by the West’. As part of the performance, art historian Griselda Pollock sits on a chair wearing a hood. As a student, Biswas challenged Pollock for not engaging meaningfully with issues of race and colonialism while making space for discussion of gender and class. This exchange led Pollock to radically revise the Leeds University art history syllabus. Biswas notes, ‘I arrived and said: “You’ve got to change the course.” I was lucky because she listened’.

Gallery label, November 2023

Jacqui Poncelet, Clay, bronze, wood and fabric  1988

This installation features both rigid and malleable materials. The objects sitting atop the fabric suggest soft flesh and intimate body parts, giving the work a sensual quality. Jacqui Poncelet’s sculptures from the 1980s were informed by her encounter with ninth-century Indian erotic stone sculptures at the British Museum. The floral pattern evokes the textiles often found in traditional English interiors. Yet, as Poncelet observes, ‘You know the way the English are such pirates. It is a Persian pattern that’s literally been adapted in an English manner’.

Gallery label, October 2025

Tish Murtha, Alleyway, Kenilworth Road from the series ‘Juvenile Jazz Bands’  1979

This black and white photograph is from Tish Murtha’s series Juvenile Jazz Bands 1979. Murtha studied documentary photography in Newport, Wales, where she was taught by photographer David Hurn (born 1934), a member of the international photography cooperative Magnum Photos. She returned to the Newcastle area in 1978, capturing the impact of deindustrialisation, as well as the social and economic disadvantages of those living in her area, disadvantages which she had also experienced.

Rita Keegan, Homage to Frida Kahlo  1987

In this self-portrait, Rita Keegan stares out at the viewer. Her direct gaze recalls the self-portraits of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (1907–1954). Cracks appear throughout her face, neck and chest. Portraiture and self-portraiture feature regularly in Keegan’s practice and are often references to her family photographs. Her extensive archive documents her Black middle-class Canadian family from the 1890s to the present day. Keegan moved to London in 1980 from the US and, in 1982, co-founded Brixton Art Gallery. She has spent her career working to support artists of colour.

Gallery label, January 2025

Rosy Martin, with Jo Spence, Part I: The Patriarch The Capitalist The Boss  1986

Denzil Forrester MBE, Three Wicked Men  1982

John Stezaker, Untitled  1989

Untitled is a collage combining three separate images. The principal image is a colour photograph of a film actress taken in the 1940s or 1950s. Her face has been excised by the silhouetted figure of another woman cut out of the paper on which the portrait was printed. The space of the silhouette is filled with a photographic reproduction of a moth on a branch. As is usual in a portrait, the photographed actress looks at the viewer but as a result of the artist’s intervention only her cheek, a few eyelashes and a sliver of eyebrow are visible on her right side and her jaw and ear on her left. Her right shoulder and part of her forearm are raised – she appears to be leaning on something. Stezaker’s collage obscures all the parts of her normally needed to read a portrait and in this sense the silhouetted figure operates like a mask – a concept central to Stezaker’s work (see Masks XI, XIII and XIV, 2005-6, T12345-7). The artist derived the image of the moth from an early colour photogravure, printed in a volume of The Natural World (a pre-war publication Stezaker found in a second hand book shop). The colours of its unusual markings – a delicate pink, white and two shades of brown – echo what we can see of the film actress’s skin tones, dark brown hair and white blouse or dress. The moth’s patterning covers most of the actress’s face with the uncanny effect of evoking a strange disfigurement. The artist has commented that the image reminds him ‘of that combination of the insectile and Victorian interiors in A.S.Byatt’s Morpho Eugenia (a short story printed in Angels and Insects, London 1992)’ (letter to the author 27 October 2007).

John Stezaker, Third Person  1988–9

Third Person is a collage combining three separate images. The principal image is a colour photograph of a film actor from the 1940s or 1950s. The silhouetted figure of another man has been cut out of this portrait, eliminating most of the actor’s face and chest, and the space has been filled with a reproduction of a painting of Queen Victoria. The outline of the second man cuts across the actor’s forehead and the corner of his right eye which looks out of the image at the viewer. His right hand, raised close to his face, is bisected by the collaged addition; it holds a cigarette that emerges from the point where the actor’s fingers meet the hand of Queen Victoria, lying on her ermine robes. The outline of the silhouetted male figure cuts off her head at the neck; the line of her necklace extends the line of the smoking actor’s right eyebrow. The silhouetted figure’s head is half filled with the image of a rich blue sky in which clouds are warmly illuminated in orange shades that complement the queen’s skin tones and the flesh tones of the smoking actor. The blue sky echoes highlights of blue light in the smoking actor’s black hair and on his dark jacket. These complimentary colours – shades of orange and electric blue – are repeated in the out of focus orange and blue patterning on the wall behind the actor.

Tish Murtha, Judging Binchester from the series ‘Juvenile Jazz Bands’  1979

This black and white photograph is from Tish Murtha’s series Juvenile Jazz Bands 1979. Murtha studied documentary photography in Newport, Wales, where she was taught by photographer David Hurn (born 1934), a member of the international photography cooperative Magnum Photos. She returned to the Newcastle area in 1978, capturing the impact of deindustrialisation, as well as the social and economic disadvantages of those living in her area, disadvantages which she had also experienced.

Tish Murtha, Noble Street from the series ‘Juvenile Jazz Bands’  1979

This black and white photograph is from Tish Murtha’s series Juvenile Jazz Bands 1979. Murtha studied documentary photography in Newport, Wales, where she was taught by photographer David Hurn (born 1934), a member of the international photography cooperative Magnum Photos. She returned to the Newcastle area in 1978, capturing the impact of deindustrialisation, as well as the social and economic disadvantages of those living in her area, disadvantages which she had also experienced.

Tish Murtha, SuperMac from the series ‘Elswick Kids’  1978

This black and white photograph is from Tish Murtha’s series Elswick Kids 1978. Murtha studied documentary photography in Newport, Wales, where she was taught by photographer David Hurn (born 1934), a member of the international photography cooperative Magnum Photos. She returned to the Newcastle area in 1978, capturing the impact of deindustrialisation, as well as the social and economic disadvantages of those living in her area, disadvantages which she had also experienced.

Richard Wentworth, 35°9,32°18  1985

Richard Wentworth had initially retrieved this ladder from a scrap heap, having been drawn to its sculptural quality. Behind it, a more fragile cable ladder emerges like a ghostly presence. The title is a map reference. Wentworth explained that it emerged from a conversation with a former Philosophy student, whom he had asked if it were possible to locate the ladder that connects heaven and earth, as described in Jacob’s dream in the Bible (Genesis 28,10). The student replied, ‘Oh yes’, and presented Wentworth with a grid reference the following morning.

Gallery label, November 2025

Leon Kossoff, Booking Hall, Kilburn Underground  1987

Kossoff’s principal subjects are his family and friends, and the parts of London best knownto him, and he reflected that, when painting public scenes, portraits of people close to him begin to appear within the crowd. This large painting belongs to a series depicting Kilburn Underground station in north London. Kossoff stated that ‘the shuddering feet of the sprawling city linger in my mind like a faintly glimmering memory of a long forgotten, perhaps never experienced childhood which, if rediscovered and illuminated, would ameliorate the pain of the present.’

Gallery label, September 2016

Bill Woodrow, English Heritage - Humpty Fucking Dumpty  1987

Wedged between the sections of a vaulting box are representations of a wheeled plough, a book, a clocking-in machine and a box with radiation hazard markings. This succession of objects symbolises human progress, creating what Woodrow calls 'a section through history'. At the top of the precarious structure sits the figure of Humpty Dumpty who, according to the nursery rhyme, 'sat on a wall' and 'had a great fall'. The ironic title English Heritage reflects Woodrow''s discomfort with the amount of jingoism in Britain during the 1980s, as well as a desire to question what actually constitutes his own heritage.

Gallery label, August 2004

Hans Haacke, Taking Stock (unfinished)  1983–4

Hans Haacke depicts Margaret Thatcher, the Conservative UK Prime Minister from 1979–1990. Haacke designed the gilded frame based on 19th century paintings in Tate’s collection. The white statue on the table (also owned by Tate) is of Pandora from Greek mythology, who opened a box unleashing evil and misfortune into the world. The plates on the bookshelf are portraits of the founders of Saatchi & Saatchi, an advertising agency. Charles Saatchi was a patron of Tate and Saatchi & Saatchi produced Thatcher’s election campaigns. Through these and other references, Haacke exposes the entangled networks of politics, art and corporate finance.

Gallery label, December 2025

Derek Jarman, Dead Man’s Eyes  1987

Tish Murtha, Jarrow Carnival from the series ‘Juvenile Jazz Bands’  1979

This black and white photograph is from Tish Murtha’s series Juvenile Jazz Bands 1979. Murtha studied documentary photography in Newport, Wales, where she was taught by photographer David Hurn (born 1934), a member of the international photography cooperative Magnum Photos. She returned to the Newcastle area in 1978, capturing the impact of deindustrialisation, as well as the social and economic disadvantages of those living in her area, disadvantages which she had also experienced.

Tish Murtha, Kenilworth Road Kids, Cruddas Park from the series ‘Juvenile Jazz Bands’  1979

This black and white photograph is from Tish Murtha’s series Juvenile Jazz Bands 1979. Murtha studied documentary photography in Newport, Wales, where she was taught by photographer David Hurn (born 1934), a member of the international photography cooperative Magnum Photos. She returned to the Newcastle area in 1978, capturing the impact of deindustrialisation, as well as the social and economic disadvantages of those living in her area, disadvantages which she had also experienced.

Tish Murtha, Kids Jumping on to Mattresses from the series ‘Youth Unemployment’  1981

This black and white photograph is from Tish Murtha’s series Youth Unemployment 1981. Murtha studied documentary photography in Newport, Wales, where she was taught by photographer David Hurn (born 1934), a member of the international photography cooperative Magnum Photos. She returned to the Newcastle area in 1978, capturing the impact of deindustrialisation, as well as the social and economic disadvantages of those living in her area, disadvantages which she had also experienced.

Tish Murtha, Lads with ‘Old Dears’ on Bench from the series ‘Youth Unemployment’  1981

This black and white photograph is from Tish Murtha’s series Youth Unemployment 1981. Murtha studied documentary photography in Newport, Wales, where she was taught by photographer David Hurn (born 1934), a member of the international photography cooperative Magnum Photos. She returned to the Newcastle area in 1978, capturing the impact of deindustrialisation, as well as the social and economic disadvantages of those living in her area, disadvantages which she had also experienced.

Eddie Chambers, Destruction of the National Front  1979–80

For this work Chambers, co-founder of the Blk Art Group, tore up an image of the Union Jack. In the 1970s the National Front had turned the flag into a symbol for white supremacy. The artist reorganised the torn pieces into a swastika which is dismembered across four panels. The National Front were a far-right, fascist political movement that attacked and intimidated Black and Asian people in Britain. Their popularity peaked at the end of the 1970s. Chambers has said of this time, ‘with such casual, but insistent and explicit ‘in-your-face’ racism, came a range of concerted strategies of combating and resisting that racism’.

Gallery label, January 2022