As Alaric Hammond points out, when you’re living in The West it’s hard to keep track of who your friends are – on a geopolitical scale at least. Pretty sure we’re still sound with Bob from down the pub. How many insurgent movements have been armed and trained by our governments, only to become more dangerous than those they were meant to overthrow? Ideology is worn like a mask, hiding a true face contorted with hate and a lust for power and control. “Good and evil often look the same to me,” says Hammond. “No-one knows… who’s winning…and the lines will only be redrawn again tomorrow, so why do we care? What should we be defending?”
From Cheek to Blushing Cheek is the UK artist’s challenging new exhibition, firing a flare over the murky world of international conflict. Hammond suggests that post-Imperial world powers are losing their grip on the puppet strings, and his work depicts vintage portraits – symbols of the old order ruling classes – vandalised with slogans and anti-capitalist cartoonery in acts of protest by a dissident force, with both sides rendered as generic stereotypes and their message distorted when presented through the filter of mass media. Join the ranks of the disaffected and disenfranchised at Forge & Co Gallery, Shoreditch, until 7 November.
