Sorcha Dallas

“In some ways, we are trying to be provocative. We are trying to flag up, if you want, a cultural question, like ‘is it true that by the end of the 80’s, culturally, socially, politically, the idea of there being an underground, in the sense that it [had] existed within culture for quite a long time, became all but impossible.’” Michael Bracewell

What does the period 1978 to 1988 mean to you? Post-punk? Margaret Thatcher? New Romantics? AIDs? In an exhibition shown at the Kunstverein in Munich that will take over the ICA in London this March, a decade that is often categorised by unemployment, recession and protest, is celebrated for producing a glut of creativity in British Art. Michael Bracewell, the writer and critic, and Stefan Kalmar, the director of the Kunstverein (referred to by Bracewell “a kind of big-deal European super-curator”) have orchestrated ‘The Secret Public’, a visual survey o f what they term ‘The Last Days of the British Underground,’ and for Bracewell and Kalmar, being made in Britain between 1978 and 1988 was not the only stipulation for inclusion. Bracewell qualifies that they were interested in, “art that wasn’t necessarily made for private galleries or museums, but was more made by people almost as an extension of their lifestyle. In other words, art that was coming practically out of subculture.” He sums up the art being made inside institutions at the time as, “very big sculptures: Anish Kapoor, Tony Cragg, Richard Deacon, people like that”, whereas ‘The Secret Public’ connects with the era’s 24-hour party people who were living the life, whilst simultaneously documenting its meanings and political ramifications. Photography and photomontage, video and performance are prevalent, with now· established names such as Gilbert and George and Wolfgang Tillmans rubbing shoulders with the relatively unknown. Tillmans shows photographs he took of London nightlife in the ‘80’s. At the same time there is a series of black and white photographs by Jon Savage entitled ’ Uninhabited London’ which depict the derelict and desolate urban landscape of Notting Hill in January 1978. Comparing the two it is easy to see what Bracewell means when he says, “‘The Secret Public’ is really about the tension between two states: the dark, the political, the monochromatic, the sinister; and the kind of feverish, the carnival, the brightly coloured and the utterly artificial.” As well as work by Leigh Bowery, there are paintings by his friend, Trojan, and a film of Bowery by Cerith Wyn Evans. There are documents of marginal communities by Stephen Willats and a scratch video from the Duvet Brothers. There is documentation of performances by the female collective Neo-Naturists, who in opposition to the coiffed New Romantic boys, “were as messy and as smelly as possible,” explains Bracewell. For him the Neo-Naturists are a prime example of artists whose work has fallen under the radar until now. Richard Hamilton, the oldest and most distinguished artist included, found his way into the bag of misfit creatives with his installation ‘The Treatment Room’. It is no doubt a perfect fit for ‘The Secret Public’ as Bracewell describes it as, “very spooky and eerie and essentially about social and cultural alienation during the Thatcher years.” Not to mention that Peter Saville contributes the metal plate from which the sleeve to Joy Division’s ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart ’ was made, and Brian Eno is in there too. Thus, in the style of diagrams often found in teen magazines that connect celebrities to each other with different coloured arrows that mean ‘once dated’, or ‘worked together’, with hindsight many of the artists in ‘The Secret Public’ can be somehow linked, often by way of a number of the periods leading lights. “I think the exhibition is joining dots,” confirms contributing artist Linder. “Even as one of the participants there are surprises; and the surprise is how that jigsaw puzzle fits together. There is something quite beautiful and elegant there that was not apparent at the time.” Linder’s photomontage work included in ‘The Secret Public’ juxtaposes images of women and domestic appliances, one of which famously graced the single cover o f ‘Orgasm Addict’ by the Buzzcocks in 1977. But not only was Linder something of a post-punk scenester for whom one name suffices, who lived with Howard Devoto of the Buzzcocks and was big pals with Morrissey; she was instrumental in the exhibition’s title. In 1978 Linder and Jon Savage (the biographer of the Sex Pistols) founded a fanzine in Manchester in which they published their photomontage. They called it ‘The Secret Public’. The cut and paste publication was sold through independent outlets such as Rough Trade, and in the spirit of most of the creative endeavours in the exhibition, at the time it failed to make any money, but has now acquired cult status.

By 1982 Linder would appear at the Hacienda with her band Ludus wearing a dress made of meat, which she then proceeded to whip off (Bucks Fizz style) to reveal a big, black dildo. “It was very interesting!” exclaims Linder, happy to talk about a story she must have recounted many times before. “It was very quiet at the end of that show! Deathly silence! It was not quite what the Hacienda audience expected.” But apparently by 1988 it was all over. Both Linder and Bracewell stress that the period was defined by people not having telephones, let alone the Internet, and as communicating became easier the underground went overground. “I think we felt that beyond ‘88 the speed with which something sort of marginal, or modern, or ‘other’, could get absorbed and commodified by the mainstream of the cultural industry increased beyond measure,” asserts Bracewell. Nearly two decades on from this perceived death of the underground and the term is still in use. Hence ‘The Secret Public’ demands that we consider whether in our MySpace generation, the underground and the mainstream can remain distinct. Is the underground now just a marketing ploy used to sell clothes to teenagers and the middle-aged a like? Is the ‘Sound of the Underground’ just words for Girls Aloud to sing? Whislt art may still manage to court controversy, it now has the potential to reach well beyond the art circle clique in a matter of moments. As Bracewell explains, “We decided to end [the survey] in 1988 because of course that was the year that Damien Hirst curated his Frieze exhibition, and everything changed again anyway with the advent of YBA (Young British Artists).” It seems that for an underground to exist there needs to be very few ways of finding out about it. “I think an underground needs time, needs secrecy and, that sort of luxury of the darkness – darkness in that sense of a very fertile space,” offers Linder. “I think that’s all gone.” But really, what’s so good about an underground anyhow? For starters they were all really poor, apparently. Jarvis Cocker correctly pinpointed that poor was cool at art school, and it may have added a certain authenticity to the ‘vie artistique’, but as Linder mentions, they often lacked a sense of community. “Individually it’s been a long, fairly solitary wait on the outside of culture,” she says. “Often ‘outside’ is hailed as being somehow a unique or visionary [position], but it’s a very lonely position. It can be a very long, long vigil, and you’re never quite sure whether you are going to die – almost in that very sort of clichéd way – undiscovered.” For the participants of the Last British Underground, if success hasn’t already come calling, it may be just about to (that is if they didn’t do the truly authentic thing and die en route). “I think it’s been a very, very long wait,” laughs Linder of her newfound status. “I mean the incubation period has been quite a few decades. Yes, it’s a very sweet taste at this point in my life.” And so, the last British underground became part of the establishment. “I want to believe as a 48 year old man now living in a remote village on the North-West coast of Lancashire, that if there is an underground in 2007, I really shouldn’t know about it,” concludes Bracewell, one of the 2007 Turner Prize judges.