Contemporary Arts in London. to).
Those on the left who call for ine Dannie or nickeung oF Allen Jones work side with petty bourgeois radical moralism. and not Marxism.
Martist. any -Berson showlo spring not from the debate to b3n Or 10i to ban, out trom a historial-materialist critique of the social relations which load Jones work.
Any other approach means the attitude of the left looks like that of the Festival of Light THE ABOVE and eter baopes in tec THERE HAS been fierce opposition from some feminists to the exhibition of Allen Jones Graphic Works 1958-78 presently on at the Institute of Opinion is divided as to what our response ought to be: to welcome the exhibition as an expose of male erotic fantasy; to demand that such rank sexism be shut down; or that an alternative, women's exhibition also be put on [which the ICA has nominally agreed PAUL TICKELE contributes to the debate.
At their most naive, Jones' "Birbe images are part of the For traditional way in which artists under capitalism have depicied women: as passive objects, scrictly for consumption by the male mys, the nude poses in angres As Jobo Berger are the same as those in soft porn.
A crisis faced this artistic tradition in the "60s, Then the TOWER HAMLETS Socialist Linity i Bookseco HE'S CHURNCCOURC end of August. The only skill requined 15 0lCH9. arty to drive an advantage. Pay ES I pete on 01-268 a ply to REVOLUTIONARY Communist Par Oreques and FOs INTERVENTION NC. films increased and pornography spread.
A questioning of the family and capitalism and the arrival of a politicised feminist consciousnesa was parallelod by "pertnis. siveness. Permissiveness was how capitalism blocked this emergent Semale sexuality In order to sell MOTE COMMODIES As if threatened, response simplistically invert the artist's tradional Image at women Women now became Strong castrators: hence Jones? fasci with boots, masks, and so on. But if Jones' womeit are active, they are not free; they have swopped their customary bondage for kinky one of leather, rubber and plastic:
Another of Jones' inversions is to use stark colours and bard roc bale lunka intervention London SWit NEW BADGE a-bilatle. Defore Dract Vince 10 For the sash for sides o0 er lithographs figures sexual relations under front of a blank space.
whal Jones biguity tolerantly con reluge Jones' aestbeticism.
relations between potentia. like whips, deviant the PICKET GARNERS SilenCin tuteambe St Feicsster Sa direct NATPHI Ian Hach Clus i pop" style is the exact opposite to the soft focus of most porn the "commodity" sexuality and other commodities by dismembering the female form or by bolating some of its fetishistic attributes these inversions Largely sense In thr especially. the have no real back ground of context: they exist it This means by his exploration of spatial am By reducing his work to the time (that is, without bistory) and by insisting on the primaci of the solitary image, he take:
history mation The first chapter of Capital says how under capitalism the people behose between commodities become fetishistie, Jones only comprehends fetishism in its naughty, mos aspects. He leaves untouched the real sruptication of his subjeet matter, that is Mi: in winch die publ should stand. world of conuriodities effects war li doc. sexual fetishism is only one part •Lewishim supporters be organising eumble sale! i you have any jumpe La Henrietta S all the best in CHALLENGE 2 September of this wider fetishism, but it is the part where the transforJones' work is voyeurist and sexist but I hope the analysis has shown that some of it - in spite of is apolitical aeschercism and its parasitism upon images drawn from advertising - is enough renoved to be a comment on SEASE CUE all its feebleness, this comment But it should oor sand the al the ICA. Just inside the exhibition is a picce Festival Socialist Booklar Salutas 2 Mr nutatiat publishing adm. 30p "CAPITAL' forinight y LONDON accommodation BiNGLE parent, Tatterin Ic snare rouse of Pal in Soal Lond the desianer typical bourgeois cribicism: totally uncritical belles-lettrism. If the JCA is to more than a bourgeois art-house, its task should be to give a critical direction to. its exhibitions.
means more than leaving crucial questions for come dicussion group should candles and sed in ICI püblicity met head on in the 'criticism' which leads the viewer into the exhibicion. The ICA must think that the sexism in Jones' work is extraneous"
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LAST Saturday the Shah celebrated the 25th| been forced to promise that
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