View all newsletters
Sign up to our newsletters

Support 110 years of independent journalism.

  1. Culture
17 April 2013

Peter Kennard: From Maggie Regina to Blue Murder

After Thatcher, political artists need to look harder.

By Philip Maughan

In early 1983, the former Labour MP Brian Walden interviewed Margaret Thatcher live from 10 Downing Street. The interview began at noon. The prime minister restated her belief that individuals had grown too dependent on the state, and that strikes were really nothing more than a selfish howl for a greater share. Walden quickly interjected, suggesting there was nothing particularly new about her ideas. “They have a resonance of our past,” he said. “You’ve really outlined an approval of what I would call Victorian values.”

This appeared, unexpectedly, to please the prime minister. “Exactly,” she half-whispered to Walden, whom she had already named publically as her favourite interviewer. “Very much so.”

Perhaps one of the best known images to come out of Margaret Thatcher’s assertion, and continued reassertion, of what she believed to be “Victorian values” was Peter Kennard’s Maggie Regina. The montage was originally designed for the front cover of the New Statesman in May 1983, but is now owned by the Tate collection and is exhibited regularly. The magazine assembled a pull-out supplement in which university historians wrote to explode Thatcherite conceptions of liberal purity, which they argued were mistakenly attributed to the Victorian era, just as the Victorians had attributed them to the Middle Ages in their own day.

“She wasn’t a PR construction like Cameron is,” says Kennard, now Senior Tutor in photography at the Royal College of Art. “She was direct – we had to attack her directly as well.” Kennard’s latest exhibition, “Blue Murder”, devised in collaboration with Cat Phillipps, aims to break through the thicker sheen of modern politicians, working with the “flat screen desert” of David Cameron’s face.

Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
  • Administration / Office
  • Arts and Culture
  • Board Member
  • Business / Corporate Services
  • Client / Customer Services
  • Communications
  • Construction, Works, Engineering
  • Education, Curriculum and Teaching
  • Environment, Conservation and NRM
  • Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance
  • Finance Management
  • Health - Medical and Nursing Management
  • HR, Training and Organisational Development
  • Information and Communications Technology
  • Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives
  • Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities
  • Legal Officers and Practitioners
  • Librarians and Library Management
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • OH&S, Risk Management
  • Operations Management
  • Planning, Policy, Strategy
  • Printing, Design, Publishing, Web
  • Projects, Programs and Advisors
  • Property, Assets and Fleet Management
  • Public Relations and Media
  • Purchasing and Procurement
  • Quality Management
  • Science and Technical Research and Development
  • Security and Law Enforcement
  • Service Delivery
  • Sport and Recreation
  • Travel, Accommodation, Tourism
  • Wellbeing, Community / Social Services
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
THANK YOU

The work is purposefully modest – old newspapers, ink, charcoal – and designed so as to be easily transported and hung outdoors or in unconventional spaces. The message is not. A series of symbols explode through Cameron’s profile: cash, stock listings, riots and adverts for Rolex watches. Their main point of contention is the dismantling of the welfare state. “He’s a PR man,” says Phillipps. “His face is just a surface. We want to rip it apart and try to reveal some of the shit that they’re doing.”

Today a ten-day exhibition featuring Kennard’s Maggie Regina and a selection of artist’s responses to Margaret Thatcher over the years opened at London’s Gallery Different. “If people can see images which support what they feel then it helps them,” Kennard explains. Where the late prime minister provided plenty of material to work with, the coalition government is an altogether more opaque, more corporate and controlled operation. This is what lies at the heart of the new work: again, artists must puncture the veneer in order to expose the false assumptions upon which those in power act. “We need to look harder now,” he says.

Blue Murder opens at the Hang-Up Gallery, 56 Stoke Newington High Street, on 27 April.

Images courtesy of Peter Kennard/kennardphillipps.

Content from our partners
The promise of prevention
How Labour hopes to make the UK a leader in green energy
Is now the time to rethink health and care for older people? With Age UK

Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
  • Administration / Office
  • Arts and Culture
  • Board Member
  • Business / Corporate Services
  • Client / Customer Services
  • Communications
  • Construction, Works, Engineering
  • Education, Curriculum and Teaching
  • Environment, Conservation and NRM
  • Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance
  • Finance Management
  • Health - Medical and Nursing Management
  • HR, Training and Organisational Development
  • Information and Communications Technology
  • Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives
  • Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities
  • Legal Officers and Practitioners
  • Librarians and Library Management
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • OH&S, Risk Management
  • Operations Management
  • Planning, Policy, Strategy
  • Printing, Design, Publishing, Web
  • Projects, Programs and Advisors
  • Property, Assets and Fleet Management
  • Public Relations and Media
  • Purchasing and Procurement
  • Quality Management
  • Science and Technical Research and Development
  • Security and Law Enforcement
  • Service Delivery
  • Sport and Recreation
  • Travel, Accommodation, Tourism
  • Wellbeing, Community / Social Services
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
THANK YOU