SHOW of the Month: Safety Curtain at Auto Italia

‘I’m thinking about the present situation at hand and I'm thinking about previous situations. I’m thinking about history, how that is told, and what constitutes value. Above all, it's about the process of excavation and restoring used to retell history versus the idea of preservation, especially when there is a favoured narrative.’ I don’t remember what my question to artist Alex Margo Arden was to elicit a response that bordered on the philosophical while also remaining so matter-of-fact. Still, I do know why she’s made such a profound comment.

We are on Zoom discussing her latest show Safety Curtain, at Bethnal Green’s Auto Italia, which opened last month and poses one question above the rest: Should protests be canonised in the history of art? While galleries have a duty to preserve and conserve artworks in the name of protecting history, what happens when—under the very guise of 'preservation'—these institutions find themselves wiping away remnants of Just Stop Oil protests? For institutions to erase any trace of the damage they have perpetuated is to pretend such protests never happened. In one of the art world’s most divine contradictions, this also means erasing history—despite their very efforts to preserve it.

In order to ask this question, Arden - a researcher and artist—has looked to history. More specifically, the kind made by The Suffragettes who were no strangers to Guerilla-style tactics when it came to targeting museums and galleries so they could have their fight, and voice, heard. 'Damaging art to draw attention isn't new', states Arden. 'It was only 100 or so years ago in 1913 did The Suffragettes famously set their sights on Manchester Art Gallery to slash 12 works in the public collection. It was their first big action in the fight for women's rights and what's incredible is those physical slashes have become part of history'.

The artist is referring to the Pre-Raphaelite portrait of Thomas Carlyle, which, although mutilated by Suffragette Anne Hunt (also known as Margaret Gibb), went on display once more at the National Portrait Gallery seven years ago, extraordinarily shown next to a photograph of the damage caused. The choice to put on view the damaged version was part of the institution's Votes for women exhibition, which celebrated the 100th anniversary of the 1918 Representation of the People Act—the legislation that gave some women in the UK the right to vote. In this vein, Arden's Safety Curtain acts as more of an academic body of research that cunningly probes rather than a show of talent that boasts. Let me explain.

Although there are works on show that demonstrate Arden's line of questioning mentioned above in a literal manner (should art be restored if damaged, if so, does this erase history in the effort of preserving it?) there are also many allusions to the implications of protests and how institutions go about referencing them—and the contradictions that innately arise if so. Let's start with the artist’s impressive Barricade series (comprising photographs of Arden’s backcloth painting of the same name hung in empty London theatres), which has been wittily juxtaposed with Cancelled Performance; a cleverly cryptic public piece of work draped over the outside of Auto Italia, meaning Auto Italia’s exterior currently (and humorously) reads CANCELLED. Yes, you are meant to advance into the gallery despite being warned not to. No, Arden’s show has not been postponed. Instead, this is a homage to the very real cancellation of a Les Misérables performance that took place in December 2023 (direct your anger at the climate protestors, not actors calling in sick).

What stands out is Arden’s cunning decision to construct multiples of the same poster as part of Cancelled Performance. Why? Because this very aesthetic references the dissident practice of flyposting, an action associated with the art of protesting which, as it turns out, is the very reason said Les Mis performance (the one Arden is referencing) was cancelled in the first place. Consider it a divine oxymoron—a testament to Arden’s salacious wit that leaks beyond the inclusion of her Barricade series. This is only the beginning.

Crucially, when it comes to feeding into the idea of preservation vs. restoration by illustrating Arden's line of questioning of 'Who has the right to dictate how history is told?' there are few better examples in Safety Curtain than Scene [14 October 2022_ National Gallery, London], a literal pastiche by the artist of Van Gogh’s imitable Sunflowers. In keeping with Arden’s flair for mischief and tongue-in-cheek approach that has become somewhat of a signature, Scene is a perfect recreation of those bright-hued sunflowers we all still fawn over except for one thing: Arden's version is half obstructed by an opaque blur of Siena Orange paint. It doesn't take a genius to work out this recreation of Van Gogh is done with a twist, Phoebe Plummer's soup n'all.

The day Van Gogh's sunflowers were targeted is a day many will remember. Not that it was one of those 'I knew where I was when I heard the news' events but it was significant, especially if you're someone who works in art. It happened on 14 October 2022 and although isn't the only renowned artwork to be targeted by climate protestors, it's by far the most memorable.

By choosing to recreate works effected by climate protestors in their full damaged glory, effectively preserving such momentous events rather than the art they're attacking, Arden questions the role galleries play in erasing some moments from history, while choosing to erect others. Why is choosing to restore impacted artworks to their former glory pre-ambush seen as 'saving history', when you're still deleting other histories (the act of protest)? When you hone in on this particular narrative, it soon becomes clear that Arden’s fascination with wanting to restore such works to their ‘original form’, (the one that is fresh from disaster) is what remains the most fascinating and enthralling aspect of Safety Curtain.

‘When anything damaging happens to an artwork’, Arden begins telling me, ‘the museum’s goal is to clean off the painting and have it back on display immediately. ‘Now you may have to check this, but I believe Van Gogh’s Sunflowers were on display just six hours after they were destroyed. They were cleaned and sent straight back out onto the gallery’s metaphorical runway’, she tells me. 'What about the museum’s conservation assessment?', I ask. ‘That always comes later’, notes the artist.

‘What’s crazy to me is the activist groups have someone there to photograph what they’re about to do so it can generate media hype. People have phones. We have pictures. We have all the evidence we could possibly want that indicates such a violation took place. But, when you look at the actual painting, there's nothing’. Not so much as even a hint of tomato soup. ‘All traces of contemporary history have been wiped', Arden emphasises. For anyone who disbelieves the artist, I dare you to track down that Thomas Carlyle portrait and inspect it yourself before you find that there is zero damage, zilch. 'I started wondering naturally about how you materially rethink this all as symbolic damage, right? Because it is symbolic. The action is there to look like the painting is destroyed, and for a second, we see it destroyed. We know it's destroyed. But when it reappears after conservationists have got their hands on it, it looks brand new. We may have secondary evidence from iPhones today but still no primary sources, because the paintings seldomly ever appear damaged'.

It’s this line of questioning that led to Arden herself thinking deeper about this, hence the name Safety Curtain. "What if these paintings stayed in this destroyed state forever?", she asks. ‘The funny thing is, they’re often not destroyed at all, which is why the whole protest action is symbolic. It’s just material that's on a pane of glass, a safety curtain'. What Arden is saying is: ‘Obviously, we would never know if the work is damaged or not but what is most telling, is what we do know’. 'Which is?', I ask... 'Galleries always act in their best interest, which means choosing a certain telling of history over another. Of course, I understand why people don't highlight it', she interjects. 'For example, in the case of the National Gallery, their security provisions at the moment are insane.' Alas, her original point stands tall.

‘Obviously, these paintings wouldn’t be displayed on show ruined because the object always gets cleaned, with the aim of all traces of this action being completely eradicated', reflects the artist. At the end of the day, it's not part of the original object's history, right? 'It's not the history the galleries want people to glean, or learn, or even know about. But it’s a gallery’s job to present and frame history. These museums are communicative spaces, and they're political spaces. So, the political action occurring within the museum is something that I think more people should be interested in. Especially the institutions themselves’.

Although one could argue Arden's thought process isn't new—just as activists targeting museums isn't, Safety Curtain miraculously relates the ambitions of activists with those in big institutional museums. It's true that protesting about the future of our climate and thinking about ways to present art for future generations is as different a conversation topic as night and day but by intensely researching and observing both subjects, a synergy forms between them, picked up on by Arden relating questions the activists are asking with the ones museums should also be concerning themselves with.

‘On a base level, a lot of the concerns of the activist groups have to do with these ideas of value: the value of objects, the value of human life, the value of the environment and our world and society. Such a simple action like paint throwing does impact how all this stuff could potentially collapse and change', she tells me. Yes, there’s an element of shock factor, but where Arden is onto something, is there’s also a message of, “You won’t even be able to enjoy Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in 100 years because we’ll all be dead”. ‘They’re thinking, “Is this all gonna even be here for people to deal with in time?”’, Arden knowingly suggests. That’s a question that binds activists and museums. Value, impact, access. That's why museums exist, to think about ways of preserving art so the next generation isn’t left out of the canon. 'These are also the goals of the climate activists—they're both asking the same question'.