‘Lines of Becoming’ Misha Black and Entanglements through Exhibition Design

In many historical accounts exhibitions are considered in isolation, in relation to specific political or cultural events. This article instead interrogates exhibitions as interlinked sites of personal and professional ‘entanglement’, connected entities that have capacity to sustain and develop multiple relationships, in this case across the career of a single designer, Misha Black (1910–1977). Through successive commissions, Black developed ideas about exhibitions as communication and propaganda, as well as developing his network and modelling formations for professional design practice. Exhibitions Black worked on which are discussed here included The Ibero-American Exhibition, Seville, 1929–1930; MARS Group Exhibition, 1938; Glasgow Empire Exhibition, 1938; New York World’s Fair, 1939–1940; Ministry of Information exhibitions mounted during the Second World War and the Festival of Britain, 1951.

The Lady Composer Steps Out

Dring’s early career is traced through her commissions for BBC radio and television broadcasts, of which the most significant is The Fair Queen of Wu, a ballet for singers and chamber ensemble with choreography by Felicity Gray. During these years, her first publications appeared, with an emphasis on piano music (for solo piano and two pianos) and her Three Shakespeare Songs. Dring’s music was also performed in recitals, including her recently published piano works and a selection of her songs (published and unpublished). The most favorable reviews are found for her Festival Scherzo (“Nights in the Gardens of Battersea”), written to commemorate the Festival of Britain. Also discussed is her one-act opera, Cupboard Love, the music written for the Christmas plays produced by Angela Bull’s Cygnet Company, and her first performance as a singer at the RCM’s Union “At Home.” A fine example of Dring’s cabaret style is found in the discussion and analysis of her song, “The Lady Composer.” In her personal life, the chapter documents her marriage to Roger Lord, his career as a musician (principal oboe in the London Symphony Orchestra for thirty-three years), and the birth of her son, Jeremy.

Insane Acquaintances

Insane Acquaintances charts the varied encounters between artistic modernism and the British public in the years between ‘Manet and the Post-Impressionists’ (1910) and the Festival of Britain (1951). Through a range of case studies which explore the work of the ‘mediators’ of modernism in Britain – those individuals, groups and organisations which facilitated the introduction of modernist art and design to public audiences during the first part of the twentieth century – Insane Acquaintances explores the social, political and cultural impact of visual modernism over the course of four decades. Focusing on the efforts to legitimise, explain and make authentic the abstract (and often continental) modernist aesthetics that shaped British artistic culture during the years 1910-1951, this study charts the changing taste of the nation, through chapters on Postimpressionist art and crafts, modernist art in schools, the home design and decoration, Surrealism and revolution and the post-War institutionalisation and funding of the arts.

A missing municipalist legacy: The GLC and the changing cultural politics of Southbank Centre

This article analyses key moments in the cultural history of Southbank Centre and focuses on two important legacies, one which is widely celebrated and the other marginalised. It discusses the 1951 Festival of Britain and the ways in which this heritage permeates recent and current working practices at Southbank Centre, and compares this to the mostly silenced legacy of the policies of Ken Livingstone's GLC towards participatory arts and accessible public space. Drawing on a wide range of interviews, it argues that Livingstone's GLC's radical arts policies and high profile funding galvanised participatory arts at Southbank Centre, and the launch of the Open Foyer Policy in 1983 promoted democratic access to the site. This historical example of the potential of municipalism is mostly missing from discourses of cultural workers for Southbank Centre today. The prevailing silence on this period of municipal socialism is part of a wider silencing of alternatives to neoliberal capitalism.

The South Bank Exhibition, Londres 1951: un análisis desde The Architectural Review

La exposición Festival of Britain de Londres de 1951 ocupa un destacado lugar en la historia de la arquitectura inglesa de la postguerra por ser el punto de arranque de la recuperación urbana del South Bank de Londres. Tuvo un gran apoyo y protagonismo en The Architectural Review, que publicó varios artículos y un número monográfico con el fin de mostrar como el master plan de la exposición se ajustaba a los ideales del Visual Planning y del Townscape que la revista venía difundiendo desde hacía unos años. Pero también fue criticada por un grupo de jóvenes arquitectos liderados por Reyner Banham que como reacción propondrían una arquitectura alternativa que fue denominada como el New Brutalism.