New Year, Same Horror

 

My first painting of 2024. This was inspired by the double-standard around violence, not just in Israel’s occupation and destruction of Palestine, but also in the ‘monopoly of violence’ that is held by states, police, militaries, and intelligence agencies, which allows both conservative and liberal politicians and commentators to claim that “violence is never the answer” when referring to someone punching a Neo-Nazi in the street, but which also allows them to not even flinch at the application of unimaginable levels of cruel, and even sadistic, violence so long as the people inflicting that violence wear the correct uniform.

The threshold for what constitutes violence is also far lower when the charge is levelled at the general public, rather than those with power. After the overturning of Roe V Wade by the US Supreme Court, when pro-choice activists were peacefully protesting outside the homes of judges, President Biden said “No intimidation. Violence is never acceptable. Threats and intimidation are not speech. We must stand against violence in any form regardless of your rationale.” Implying that a protest was intimidation, and that intimidation was a form of violence.

A quote of “Violence is never acceptable” from the commander in chief of the most powerful military in the history of the world, and a nation that has been at war for all but eighteen of its 247-year existence, also comes preloaded with its own punchline.

This tweet from Aaron Bady has stayed with me, “The basic (colonial) double standard of the Israel Palestine “conflict” is that any Palestinian violence justifies any Israeli violence, but no Israeli violence ever justifies any Palestinian violence, and once you see it, you’ll never stop seeing it.”

He continued, “(personally, I think the idea that anything “justifies violence” is a basic category error; violence is, definitionally, unjust. It sometimes be the least-bad, least cursed choice on offer, but justice is the absence of violence, not the correct application of it.)”

This is absolutely spot on in my view.

 

THE END OF THE MUSEUM OF NEOLIBERALISM

Unfortunately, 2024 looks like it will be the final year in my Lewisham studio, which also hosts the Museum of Neoliberalism. The developers have planning permission to demolish the building and have told me I’ll likely have to leave by October, although I should know for certain by April if they’re on schedule. This means this year is mostly going to orbit around the hunt for a new studio and a new home for the museum.

I’ve been considering moving out of London if I’m able to get a mortgage to actually buy something that could function as both a studio and a forever-home for an expanded Museum of Neoliberalism and/or Thatcher Museum. I’ve been considering Liverpool, Bristol, Glasgow, although my first preference would be to stay in London, (if I win the lottery etc). I did find something in Liverpool which looked ideal and affordable and would make an incredible museum space with even room for the Hell Bus – although it looks like Liverpool council may have taken it off the market. If you’re a Liverpool councillor who could potentially help bring an expanded version of the museum to Liverpool please let me know!

And I might as well fling this out into the void, but if anyone out there has a light industrial or commercial unit burning a hole in their pocket that they could do me a deal on, get in touch. I just want somewhere I can build on long-term because I’m in this for the long haul. I’m also considering splitting the museum and studio if necessary/feasible. The museum could really do with being somewhere more central or with good transport links, whereas my studio could be almost anywhere.

But the long and the short of it is, if you haven’t seen the Museum of Neoliberalism yet, you’ve only got around 10 months to do so! There’s really no guarantee I’ll have a space to reopen it once I move out. Book a visit here!

 

LAST YEAR

Last year was heavily Shell focused, revolving
around three major projects, the Hell Bus / Hell Petrol Station installation at Glastonbury (see above), my trips to Nigeria to film a documentary and build a Niger Delta Hell Bus (right and below), and the UK Hell Bus tour. I didn’t get to draw and paint half as much as I would have liked, which is something I’ll be remedying this year.