Architectural Association School of Architecture

Zevs (FR), Ztohoven (CZ), Krzysztof Wodiczko (PL), Matthias Wermke & Mischa Leinkauf (DE), Voina (RU), Upper Space (UK), Gregory Sholette (US), Michael Rakowitz (US), Platform (UK), Ben Parry (UK) & Peter McCaughey (IE), Tatzu Nishi (JP), Renzo Martens (NL), Knit the City (UK), Peter Kennard (UK), Laura Keeble (UK), Allan Kaprow (US), John Jordan (UK), Tushar Joag (IN), International Peripatetic Sculptors Society (UK+), Space Hijackers (UK), Paul Harfleet (UK), EPOS 257 (CZ), Electronic Disturbance Theater (US), Nina Edge (UK), Alan Dunn (UK), Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (UK+), Paolo Cirio (IT), Leah Borromeo & Dr. D (UK), BGL (CA)

From the creation of insurgent public spaces to the playful disruptions of public life, Cultural Hijack – curated by artists Ben Parry and Peter McCaughey – explores the role of art and the artist in contemporary society and offers the opportunity to rethink the growing field of intervention in relation to cultural activism and social change.

The exhibition presents a series of provocative interventions which have inserted themselves into the world, demanding attention, interrupting everyday life, hijacking, trespassing, agitating and teasing. Often unannounced and usually anonymous, these artworks have appropriated media channels, hacked into live TV and radio broadcasts, attacked billboards, re-appropriated street furniture, subverted signs, monuments and civic architectures, organised political actions as protest, exposed corporations and tax loopholes and revealed the absurdities of government bureaucracies.

Cultural Hijack occurs in three parts: a survey exhibition of documented artworks from across the globe, supported by a programme of artists’ talks; a programme of live-interventions, in which artists arrive in London to agitate and infiltrate the urban territory, starting in Bedford Square and moving out across the city; and CONTRAvention, in which the programme culminates in a carnival weekend of lectures, symposia, screenings, participatory actions, interventions, dinners and debate.

Public Lecture: (un)CONVENTION, Friday 26 April 2013, 6pm, New Soft Room

Events: A programme of temporary public artworks, events and performances accompanies the exhibition - Further details will be published at www.culturalhijack.org

This exhibition is supported by Arts Council England, The Architectural Association, P H Holt Foundation, Polish Cultural Institute, FACT, Québec Government Office London, CitizenM, WAVE, Jump Ship Rat, EU-Japan Fest, Canada Council for the Arts and University of West of Scotland.

Image: BGL, Domaine de l’angle II, 2008 (photo: Toni Hafkenscheid)

Maurice Broomfield (1916-2010) left school at the age of 15 to work in a factory while spending his evenings studying at Derby College of Art. Fascinated initially by the drama of industrial modernity as portrayed in the 18th century paintings of Joseph Wright, he later developed a post-war industrial aesthetic that drew on both art history and European modernism.

Producing monumental prints for both trade and exhibition purposes, Broomfield combined photography as art and document that echoed the interests of the Bauhaus artists and the New Objectivity of 1920s Weimar Germany. His distinctive approach to factories, laboratories, workshops and shipyards combined with an innovative use of monochrome and colour, reveal the intricacy and grandeur of industrial processes. Broomfield however was attentive to the status of the worker; they are humanist rather than alienating depictions of manual and technical labour.

As historical documents his imagery belongs to a period of urban regeneration and economic optimism that looked to technology as a utopian means to rebuild Britain. They are poignant reminders of the social and political certainties surrounding ‘old’ industry, as well as the technological faith in futuristic materials. The images remain fascinating as monumental records of an unseen world of research and production.

Text by Russell Roberts
(Excerpt from Maurice Broomfield, published by Foto8)