“My art erupts from outrage at the fact that the search for financial profit rules every nook and cranny of our society. Profit masks poverty, racism, war climate catastrophe and on and on…My aim is to unmask the connection.” Peter Kennard.
Kennard is an artist who has devoted his life to using striking photomontages to rip away the masks of deception and brutality that clothe the current capitalist state. His latest exhibition in Whitechapel Gallery, London, is a retrospective of fifty years of work on this subject.
Though his style is instantly recognisable, often from myriads of posters on protest marches, he is not shown in major galleries: the entitled rich don’t want him on their walls. He is constantly in demand to create images of anger and protest. It is noticeable that in the 1980s he was featured regularly in the left-leaning Guardian newspaper, but they wouldn’t give him house room today.
The subjects he covers are many, including war, poverty, surveillance and oppression. Margaret Thatcher, and other iconic faces of the ruling class feature prominently, as well as weaponry, being subverted by his art.
Along with photomontages, he has moved into installations, which brings his work into 3D.
The exhibition statement says, “Archive of Dissent offers a vital repository of social and political history while illuminating a practice that has defined a distinctive iconography of protest and continuously challenged the status quo.”
He summarises his work as, “The victims, the resistance, the human community saying no to corporate and state power. It rails at the waste of lives caused by the trillions spent on manufacturing weapons of war and the vast profits made by arms companies.”
