Fighting History

Fighting History is an odd exhibition at the Tate Britain.  I love the Tate Britain.  The Turner bequest is a perpetual siren song for me and they have had very excellent exhibitions before.

This one though was surprisingly odd.  I was expecting I suppose the depiction of war throughout the ages. It was not this. I am not at all sure what it was even after reading the little pamphlet they gave out. Several of the first rooms had pictures of conflict, the centre piece was large exhibit including a video that was basically the history of the miners’ strike and the final room were differing depictions of the biblical flood.

There were some very good pieces on display such as Steve McQueen’s photo of the hanging tree,  the Battle of Hastings by Allen Jones, the Death of Major Peirson by John Singleton Copley and The Deluge by Winifred Knights.  As a whole though this exhibition did not work.  It felt like they had this large installation on the miners’ strike and had bolted on an exhibition around it.  If the strike interests you then I strongly suggest you go. If not then there are other better exhibitions.

Still there are some pieces there, particularly the Allen Jones piece which I would never have seen otherwise.  And there is always the reward of the Christine Mackie installation in the free part of the museum and the chirping bird song of Oswaldo Macia’s  Something Going on Above My Head which had me entranced for a while.