See You at the Barricades

See you at the barricades 1 ‘Well then, see you at the barricades’. nostalgic depictions of protest movements. My grandfather said this to me in the parking These include Marco Fusinato’s gutsy yet silent An introduction lot of his local shopping mall. I’m not sure images of rioters and Raquel Ormella’s banner where he came across the phrase, but he has declaring, ‘I’m worried I’m not political enough’. used it all my life. For him the saying is a way The exhibition concludes with Sharon Hayes’s not only to identify himself as an ‘old lefty’, but multi-screen installation overflowing with also to invite amity through shared resistance. balloons and raucous chants, which brings I have borrowed his catchphrase as the together many of these themes. These works title of this exhibition, which studies the complex traverse the emotional terrain of protest, entanglements of art and protest after the revealing the complexity of art’s relationship ‘year of the barricades’, 1968. Recently many to political change. contemporary artists and curators have used the materials common to protest, from banners --------- See you and sandwich boards to demonstration re-enactments, repositioning protest within the In May 1968, Paris erupted in demonstrations. white rooms of contemporary art spaces and Photos from the time show thousands of major museums. This raises several questions: students and workers in the streets, waving at the where do the boundaries between protest and flags and clambering over upturned cars. art lie? Is there a difference between protest art Elsewhere, the Vietnam War raged, Soviet and art that uses protest’s symbols? If so, do Union-led troops invaded Czechoslovakia to barricades the latter simply manifest nostalgia, neutralising crush the Prague Spring reforms, and Martin the impact of such symbols by aestheticising Luther King was assassinated. At the Mexico them and relegating them to history? Or are City Olympic Games, two African-American they more complex attempts to make sense of athletes won medals and famously held their the relationship between past and present? clenched fists aloft in a gesture that echoed the See you at the barricades is a speculative Black Panthers salute. exhibition that explores some of these ideas Such images are burned into collective through a selection of works in the collection memory. They have become symbols that of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The represent a build-up and release of baby exhibition ranges from historical protest works boomer dissent. Essayist Isaac Balbus captures through to contemporary reflections of dissent. the feeling of this generation: ‘For many of us There are four sections, each with a thematic who cut our political teeth on the civil rights, title: ‘Declarations’ (political posters and antiwar and student movements, the sixties slogans); ‘Screenings’ (television, archives and live on as a longing for a golden age that has documentary); ‘Left-wing melancholy’ and been lost to a permanently pallid present.’1 finally a single work titledRevolutionary love: Of course no one can top such a heroic, I am your worst fear, I am your best fantasy. if fictionalised, past. As political theorist The first section opens with protest works such Jean-Philippe Mathy suggests, ‘Before, the as the technicolour posters that flowered in story goes, people believed in revolution and Australia in the late 1970s and ’80s. These national identity; after, amid the crisis of the images provide historical context for the future, the era of emptiness opens up’.2 Those subsequent section, which turns to the role of of us born after the 1960s, too late to be part screen-based media in protest: John Hughes of the so-called ‘golden age’ of counterculture, and Peter Kennedy’s remixed footage of Prime grew up in this ‘crisis’. Minister Gough Whitlam’s dismissal and Billy The year 1968 remains a talisman of Macushla Robinson Maynard’s reprinted images of protesters both transnational resistance, after which the image show the ubiquity of the dissident figure on and idea of revolution became gradually more screen. Following this are contemporary works complex. With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 that explore our culture’s romantic and often and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the 2 3 totalitarian nature of many communist govern- it and art that seeks to retain the autonomy I can’t understand the present, or believe in the produced under the rubric of Redback by Alison ments, which had long been suspected, became and critical distance traditionally afforded future, if I can’t look back at where we’ve been’. Alder. A woman holds a sign high over her head truly undeniable and their rehabilitation to artists. Here this means the subtle but that reads, ‘When they close a pit they kill a impossible. What we now call postmodernity important difference between protest art and --------- community’. It urges viewers to ‘support the – with all its attendant contradictions, shades art about protest. KCC women’s auxiliary’ because ‘community of grey and apparent nihilism – set in. Yet the boundaries between these Declarations action will save our jobs’. With her weathered For my grandfather, who found his political positions continue to erode. Protest has been face and yellow apron-style dress she is an community in the labour movement, the ‘golden the subject of many recent exhibitions. These In May 1968, amid the fray in Paris, a group idealised version of the working class mother: age’ was earlier, in Australia’s early history of include Direct democracy (2013) at Monash of radical students took over the printing practical, politically active, salt of the earth. revolt: the red ribbon rebellion in Bendigo in University Museum of Art, Melbourne; Hereby studios at the École des Beaux-Arts and Around the same time, many poster 1853, the Eureka Stockade of 1854, even the make protest (2014) at Carriageworks, Sydney; produced a series of posters that they pasted collectives were actively campaigning for ill-fated ‘New Australia’ socialist colony set up and Protest! Archives from the University of up all over the city. While the political poster environmental causes (for example, Redletter in Paraguay in 1893. His ideal past was different Melbourne (2014). Internationally, the Victoria has a long and rich history, the graphics in Press’s Save the Franklin. Damn the from that of today’s ‘left’. Though he taught and Albert Museum’s Disobedient objects (2014) France at this time arguably served as an government c1982). These issues were me values of social justice, his were far more made the roles of creativity in contemporary antecedent for political poster collectives often at odds with each other. The left-wing masculine (predominantly white and working protest plain.5 around the world in the late 1970s and ’80s. movements of my grandfather’s time valued class) than those of my own political And just as artists have deployed their This first section of the exhibition, titled solidarity. Yet in this section we can see that communities. Yet his heartfelt nostalgia for an skills in aid of protest movements, images of ‘Declarations’, offers historical context. The the protest landscape is more complex at apparently more radical time that antedates protest have become material for artists. While works do not consider past protests but engage closer view. The many causes represented the 1960s shows that each generation has its the first section ofSee you at the barricades with the political issues of their time, from youth here don’t always align. irretrievable golden age. My parents, who came features posters that try to persuade us with unemployment to the poor representation of Many poster collectives at this time spoke of age later, in turn yearned for the 1960s. colour and humour (artists using their skills to women in art galleries (many of these issues out for Aboriginal land rights. The Women’s The tendency to glorify past rebellions protest), other sections show the work of artists remain relevant today). Bound together by their Domestic Needlework Group, for example, was articulated long before the 1960s. who reflect upon the material aesthetic that declamatory style, these posters represent a produced a poster titled Aboriginaland. Land Walter Benjamin coined the term ‘left-wing has come to define protest movements. Many directly political form of art. rights, not mining 1979 (underlining the afore- melancholy’ in an essay of that title (1930), of these works comment on the circulation of Plastered across two walls in a dense grid mentioned tension between mining workers which describes an individual who prefers to political imagery, rather than being a form of of statistics and bright colours, the posters on and other social justice issues). Land rights lament the passing of a struggle rather than activism themselves. display are by turns funny, angry and earnest. dance 1977 by Chips Mackinolty recalls Joe transform the present. Benjamin’s phrase On the surface, See you at the barricades The cacophony of voices, slogans and statistics Rosenthal’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph captures the mood of many of the works in is a ‘protest show’. But it is also about nostalgia vying for attention plays out the confusion of Raising the flag on Iwo Jima 1945, which depicts the third section of this show – an almost for protest. Though many artists are suspicious contemporary political life. American troops during World War II – an irrational attachment to revolutionary idealism of nostalgia, I don’t believe that we can simply Unlike the strikingly simple French posters heroic, widely disseminated image. Another and the camaraderie that comes with it. dismiss its power. Yearning for another time of 1968, later Australian political posters sought poster by Marie McMahon, who was in both Arguably, artists who draw upon the is a feeling familiar to many.

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