Oh ‘Ello… Tories on the streets
In March 2020 we rode the first wave of COVID 19 with a brace of posters by the marvellous Magda Archer and Hayden Kays. Then there was a brief flyingleaps outing with Jeremy Deller’s TAX AVOIDANCE KILLS: thanks so much to everyone who purchased this signed quad poster from the ViralACBF. We raised over 2K for the Trussell Trust. And now we’re back with two new posters by Archer and Kays that, as ever, cut concisely and wittily through the miasma of incompetence and self-serving corruption visited on us by PM Boris Johnson and his merry band of truth twisters.
It seems apt that these two new flyingleaps posters by Kays and Archer first saw light of day in Manchester. A city that dared to confront the flip and callous arrogance that goes to the very heart of this increasingly reactionary, smug and spiteful Tory party. Their serious, multiple failures will only become more apparent as time goes on. Here we go indeed…
Oh ‘Ello (2020) Magda Archer
In Archer’s ‘Oh ’Ello…’ (2020) a shiny, somewhat raw ‘n’ sore looking red bear opines wearily “More New Rules”, with the rollercoaster line ‘Here We Go!’ completing the picture. Kays’ ‘Tories’ (2020) writ large in a font and design that brings to mind a certain supermarket giant beginning with the letter ‘T’ is tagged underneath in a chirpy script… ‘Very Little Help’.
Tories (2020) Hayden Kays
Whereas Tesco might claim a smidgen of benificence while pocketing soaring profits the same cannot be said for our government. While MPs got a pay rise, key workers and the creative industries have been very poorly served throughout. And how on earth do you justify not ensuring hungry kids get at least one meal and day in the holidays? You don’t. They’re not even bothering to hide their malice but respond only with that oh-so-trite line about not letting people become ‘dependent on the state’. Dido Harding and the rest benefitting from dodgy procurements seem to be doing alright. If only the Tories were dealing with this pandemic as expertly as they’re delivering Brex… Oh.
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Apart from More That Unites Us (2017) and Agitate In Memoriam (2018) which are currently limited to a run of 100, each edition is limited to 300.
ALL POSTERS ARE 30X20 INCHES.
All are numbered and signed on the back by the artist.
Posters are mailed 1st class – to be signed for – every Monday.
Dr. D aka Subvertiser
While the debate goes on as to whether flyposted and other oppositional art or visual activism has any direct effect in bringing about sociopolitical change, what it can do at its best is feed into the publics’ disposition.
Through strong imagery, cogent or quizzical text, humour, relatively speedy production and distribution, via its capacity to occupy anomalous spaces in the urban environment and through an imaginative, enacted engagement with matters of concern it can generate social media interest and help inform, even propel, opinion.
Dr. D’s targets include surveillance culture; the social effects of neoliberalism; commodification; mealy-mouthed and uncaring politicians; abuses of power in the media… Much more than bald sloganeering Dr. D’s imagery and text pieces often emerge, on reflection, as enigmatic meditations on twenty-first century existential angst.
Transgressing boundaries can reveal hidden rules. One could cite the precedents of the carnivalesque ‘telling truth to power’, vaudevillian comedy, Dada gestures in art but all of these, in a – it’s only a bunch of pucks/entertainers/artists – sense, operated in ‘sanctioned’ arenas. Dr. D’s contributions to the urban environment are rarely sanctioned and it’s this that contributes significantly to their traction and incisiveness.
The urban spectacle would have us believe that its over-riding character is, yes aspirational, but emphatically neutral and apolitical: that generally we’re going to be just fine if we carry on pretty much as we are. Dr. D’s pithy interventions, highlighting so many germane issues and employing such a variety of modes of address, repeatedly suggest otherwise.
