A New Weird Albion: Essay by Bruce Davies

The views expressed in this article are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of BasementArtsProject, the artist or of its Board or members.

It is hardly surprising, that since reopening BasementArtsProject in August, the nature of the exhibitions have been somewhat political. Pushing through a time of great turmoil and upheaval as we are doing right now, things that have been bubbling under for a long time have quite predictably and reasonably come to the surface. Art is an opportunity not just for the artist, but also the viewer to reflect. Whilst art often refers to and critiques itself, more often than not it also acts as a critique of the world around into which it has been birthed. Even the most abstract of ideas are born as a reaction to something, and an area of life that, on the face of things, seems to stand outside the influence of market forces, cannot help but be buffeted by the socio-political trade winds. Art is political.   

‘My Kingdom For A Croissant’ is an exhibition that has effectively been two years in the making. Initially I met Nick Vaughan at an exhibition of his work at Aire Place Studios in Leeds. For this, and a couple of other projects, he had been making work about the decimation of mining communities in the 1980’s. For this exhibition he has turned his attention to a more current political situation - Brexit. 

After four years of vitriolic political argument that has led to the death of an MP, and the break-up of families, it is then ironic that the project was derailed for the best part of two-years by the outbreak of a global pandemic. During this time as everyone was driven indoors, artists have to a large degree been able to carry on making work; such is the nature of work that is generally exploratory and improvisational. Such a prolonged interim for many artists and arts organisations has meant a need to change their way of working, when the possibilities for exhibitions and face-to-face contact have been taken away. This has resulted in quite a different landscape at the other end of the tunnel.  

For BasementArtsProject this has meant a restructuring of our programme, with all of our 2020 artists moving back into 2021, and some of those back again into 2022 as the second lockdown took a hold. November 2020 should have seen the realisation of Nicholas Vaughan’s ‘My Kingdom For A Croissant’ exhibition, instead we were, at that point, at the height of the first lockdown. As a result the project spread out to incorporate an online version in February 2021. One of the pieces ‘Tunnel of Tusks’ was selected for the John Moore’s Painting Prize, the exhibition of which was held online in a virtual reproduction of the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. BasementArtsProject took a different approach to online representation of the work by playing with scale and presentation in a way that is not possible in the Real-World. For the first time ever, BasementArtsProject was an aircraft hangar of a space able to display monumental sculptures, such is the infinite nature of the hard-drive’s airless vacuum.

Finally in November 2021, we have managed to fulfil our promise of an exhibition that includes the 3rd dimension and install the work of Nick Vaughan in the Real-World BasementArtsProject.

The front exhibition space is partially carpeted with Astroturf that connects an archipelago of little grassy islands, each containing a single sculpture. One of the first images that confronts you as you walk into the front room is a work entitled ‘Promised Land Stowaway’. One of the sculptures casts an intentional shadow over the bottom right hand corner containing a road sign for Calais. The darkness and obscurity of this little corner is a stark contrast to the “sunlit uplands’ of the area surrounding the sign that loudly proclaims ‘Vote Leave’. Standing in the doorway to the exhibition space it is the ‘Vote Leave’ sign that really stands out and catches the eye. This in itself says a lot about how modern politics conducts its business. It is about sticking your fingers in your ears whilst proclaiming your own point of view loud enough to drown out the concerns of others. Meanwhile down in the corner, Calais still exists but, in the manner of Hy-Brasil*, it is only visible when the media spotlight cuts through the cloaking fog of darkness. Calais is a continual prison break of desperate people just waiting for their lives to happen.

 *Hy-Brasil: a mythical island off the coast of Ireland that only becomes visible once every seven years when the fog cloaking it lifts.

As I sit down to write this text, the day after the opening night, it is also the day after one of the most tragic events of recent times involving the drowning of twenty-seven migrants in the English Channel. Vaughan’s work looks at the recent history of the United Kingdom and some of the issues that have led us to the point at which we now find ourselves; a nation divided along many fault lines. The world is and always has been a harsh place and our existence within it short and brutal. For all of our technological developments, it could be argued that we have failed to improve our circumstances as a species and continue to make the same mistakes, leading us to live the same lives over and over again. Technology has improved the creature comforts of many, but it has not really improved our mindset as a species, or the lives of those at the base of the economic pyramid.

The two sculptures at the front of the group, mounted on their own grassy islands, appear to be oarsmen in the manner of galley slaves; one to the left, one to the right, pulling on their oars. In light of the aforementioned migrant drownings in the channel, the idea of escape starts to beg questions around choice, and how much autonomy people have over the lives they lead. Is the English Channel an escape to the freedom of a new life, or merely a passageway between differing degrees of captivity; either in their home countries ravaged by western-made wars, or in the watery grave of the channel itself, death being the only other possible outcome? After life in the camps of Calais, what life awaits them in other countries who loudly cry ‘we can’t afford you’. A story as old as history itself.

There is a phrase coined by Ambalavaner Sivanandan** that stated ‘We are here because you were there’, a thought that those who take issue with migrants, refugees and those who generally do not appear ‘British born and bred’ conveniently choose to ignore. Through the western world’s exploitation of the global South, for its people and resources, we have precipitated a crisis that is now starting to make its presence felt in the lives of the wealthy west. This is our ‘Festival of Brexit’, dreamt up as a celebratory concept, yet strangely no longer promoted, by those who sought to tell the rest of the world ‘we have what we want and now we are pulling up the drawbridge’.

‘My Kingdom For A Croissant’ is the real ‘Festival of Brexit’. Probably not the one that those who fought for it would have conceived of or wanted, but an honest one never the less. This is the truth starting to emerge from the burnt out chassis of an abandoned bus, the engine driving the false narrative of those that have willingly sowed the seeds of division and mistrust.

The ten collages spread out across the two rooms are intense in their detail, news images overpainted in stark black and white, giving everything a ghostly sheen and emphasising the contrast of old fashioned news print. The artist wears his heart on his sleeve. Pulling no punches, each work meticulously dissecting what could only be described as the worst aspects of this strangely fraught point in our country’s history. Many figures from contemporary politics feature repeatedly across the various works: In one piece Nigel Farage, dressed as a garden gnome complete with fishing rod, is micturating off the edge of one of the works. Elsewhere he features in more familiar poses, gurning with pint glass and cigar. The real man of the people.

**Director of the Institute of Race Relations from 1973 to 2013, and the editor of its journal, Race & Class

The three dimensional work is all based on Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s racial epithets. Whether it be describing women in burkas as looking like terrorists or letterboxes***, referencing picaninies with watermelon smiles**** or  tank top bum boys*****, no one is safe from his sordid opinions. The colourful cartoonish-ness of the sculptures are an outgrowth of the very intense and detailed collages spread across the exhibition space, and stand in stark contrast to the spectral, bleached-bone quality of the two dimensional images. Together the sculptures and collages expose the true nature of jokey Johnson’s vindictive, spiteful and downright hateful caricatures. Anyone that has grown up in areas of the country not known for their multicultural communities, will recognise such caricatures for what they are; anger wrapped up in xenophobic fear and expressed as allegedly humorous asides. Vaughan’s work pulls back the curtain to reveal the true Grand Wizard of Brexit, a wizened, toothless clod hiding behind a paper-thin veneer of respectability. 

***The Telegraph 2018
****The Telegraph 2002
*****The Telegraph 1998

Having moved from a fairly small and insular part of the country to one of the UK’s larger northern cities, it feels like racism is a learned behaviour rather than something that is naturally occurring within society, a method of control handed down to the less well off by those who seek to maintain control through division. The area in which I now live (and that BasementArtsProject is at the centre of) is a densely populated and diverse community. Despite being an area of extreme economic deprivation and plagued by bad behaviour, racially the area has always felt relatively at ease with its diversity; aggression between people tending to be  along the lines of feuding family’s or long standing grudges rather than racial divides. Of course this is only my perception as I engage with those around me and has not been quantified scientifically.

Recently, I was shocked to read a newspaper article about someone who I had grown up and gone to school with being imprisoned for plotting, and acquiring the materials, to bomb a local mosque. This information was simultaneously at odds with the area that I remember and yet sadly familiar. During the 1970’s and 80’s I recall racist graffiti daubed on the walls of local estates and underpasses, strange sentiments for an area in which you rarely saw people from any other culture. Such violent intent seems odd for an area not known for its diversity. 

Things have changed in South Leeds in recent years; a simmering tension beneath the surface, seemingly ignited by the actions of the 7/7 London bombers, of which three were from South Leeds. In the years since there have been incidents of arson in local mosques. The rhetoric has ramped up on all sides with arguments over everything becoming the flashpoint for protests. Meanwhile left and right drift apart in a sea of anger and confusion, if we are not careful the prospect of a more unified and hopeful land may well be lost at sea forever.

Of course it is not just Leeds that is feeling the effects of inflammatory language and divisive behaviour, up and down the country we are seeing outbursts of violence and anguish surrounding this heavy admixture of religion, politics and extremism.

Throughout 2020 and 2021, Boris Johnson revealed himself to be, not only an avid painter of buses, but also a leader strangely in awe of Mayor Larry Vaughan. Larry Vaughan, if you have never seen the film ‘Jaws’, is the Mayor of the seaside town of Amity who insists that the beaches remain open for the tourist season, despite knowing that there is a great white shark out there eating the holiday makers.

Down in the darkness of the Basement, the colonies are presided over by a strange sculptural amalgamation of Boris Johnson, Mayor Larry and the shark itself. Stood atop a dirty white plinth in a pool of dazzling white, don’t be fooled -everything here is cheaper than it looks, this strange machete wielding creature presides with rancour over anyone left who will still listen. 

Come on in the water’s lovely . . . . nothing to see here