Fighting For Crumbs (Art in The Shadow of Neoliberal Britain)
Fighting For Crumbs (Art in the Shadow of Neoliberal Britain) is a group of artists from Yorkshire working amidst the after-effects of Austerity Britain 2.0.
The project was inspired by the film ‘Invisible Britain’ (based on the work of Sleaford Mods) that looks at overlooked UK towns and cities, and motivated by a request to contribute to the 50th anniversary celebrations of ‘The RedShed’ (Wakefield Labour Club). The event is based in Sheffield and Wakefield and explores the position of art, and artists, in a period when we are all being pressured to ‘strive’ for crumbs – a time when wages are low, and the market dictates creativity
Gage Gallery, Ball Street, Sheffield, S3 8DB
Monday 8 August: Opening night. 6:30 – 9pm
Friday 12 August. Music and poetry night. 6:30 – 9 pm
11-4pm
The Redshed, 18 Vicarage St S, Wakefield WF1 1QX
Saturday 13 August. 1Pm onwards. Film-viewing, and talk by JD Taylor
Normal gallery opening times: 8 August – 13 August, 7-11pm (call 01924215626 to check room is not in use).
Everything I’ve Done in 2015
It’s pretty unlikely I’ll get anything else done this year now, as I’ve hit my New Year-period wall prematurely, from which I can never imagine the possibility of making anything new again – until I make something new again. Perhaps I do my own yearly roundups because I somehow feel that I’m unjustifiably forgotten about. When I regain my bearings from the egotistical gravel pit, I recognise that it’s likely over 90% of us feel this way. But all the same, no choice but to play The Game.
So here’s a list, in a more or chronological order, of the best bits of what I have done in 2015; and believe me, there’s a lot of bits I’d rather regret. Regarding the visual works, I feel THE LONG NIGHT OF A NEEDLESS STORM is my strongest piece, both in visuals and title, it’s the best attempt I’ve made all year of interlinking all the problems of today indirectly back to the dominant political agenda.
January 2015
Non-Stop Inertia: A Stuck Record in London
February 2015
Surfaces of an Unrealised World
March 2015
Not Humanly Possible (A4, ink on paper)
Not Humanly Possible
A Cognitive Austerity (A4, ink on paper)
A Cognitive Austerity
Another Lonely Night, Stare at TV Screen
April 2015
May 2015
Lost Bus Routes and Pre-Election Rambles from john Ledger on Vimeo.
Five MORE Years… (A4, ink on paper)
five MORE years…
“I am Here (a Lost Work From 2009)
June 2015
THE LONG NIGHT OF A NEEDLESS STORM (125x100cm, mixed media on paper)
THE LONG NIGHT OF A NEEDLESS STORM
“Hardworking Tax-payers, Inconvenienced” (A4, ink on paper)
“Hardworking Taxpayers, Inconvenienced”
Pain is Barred an Outlet (A4, ink on paper)
Pain is Barred an Outlet
July 2015
“Sad, LONELY, Frightened” (A4, ink on paper)
“Sad, LONELY, Frightened”
Stories From Forgotten Space (book)
Everybody’s Fracking (95X130cm, mixed media on paper)
Everybody’s Fracking
This Is Not a Top Song List: My Life Through Joy Division Tracks
August 2015
The Self [ie] Under Siege (A4, mixed media on paper)
![The Self [ie] Under Siege - By John Ledger](https://johnledger.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/john-6.jpg?w=479)
The Self [ie] Under Siege
Interview for Art Saves Lives magazine
OneNationTory (2015)
OneNationTory
September 2015
“Can We Stop Now, Please?” (A4, mixed media on paper)
“Can We Stop Now, Please?”
The Big Smoke (and Mirrors): Stories From Forgotten Space from john Ledger on Vimeo.
Images from Voices From The Wilderness exhibition (Sheffield)
Images from Strange Bedfellows exhibition (Barnsley)
October 2015
Manchester and The Morning After (Stories From Forgotten Space) from john Ledger on Vimeo.
Nothing New Under Digital Rain
November 2015
Debtland (2015, 110X77cm, mixed media on paper)
Debtland
Artwork for Wear Your Band T-shirt to Work Day (explanation here)
Artwork for Wear Your Band T-shirt to Work Day
Sounds that made up my year…
“the rotten soil of nowhere land”
Tears For Fears – The Hurting (Demo version)
Zomby – Where Were U in 92′
Real McCoy – Runaway (Tory election victory-sting-soother)
The Fall – Frightened
New Order – The Village
Goat – Let it Bleed/Gathering of Ancient Tribes
Sleaford Mods – Double Diamond
Wu Tang Clan – C.R.E.A.M
Sleaford Mods – Mcflurry
Sleaford Mods – Jobseeker
Sleaford Mods – Tied up in Notts
DMS – vengeance
Sleaford Mods – Teacher Faces Porn Charges
Rufige Kru – Menace
Congress – 40 Miles
Chumbawumba – Tubthumping
Sonz of a Loop Da Loop Era – Far Out
The Chameleons – Don’t Fall/Second Skin – (again)
Winter
I Just haven’t got the resistance to comfort-seeking I used to have in aid of achieving what I had to do. Every day 5 years back, at the back end of 2010, I would go down to my studio (Elsecar, South Yorks), straight after my job, 2 train stops or 2 bus rides from where I live, in the one of the coldest snaps I have experienced in my life. In aide of what? I was working on 2 drawings that were meticulously thought on about how to describe the world we were drifting into; I knew already that Tory rule would mean a intensification of all the things we needed to veer away from to avert future disasters, socially and ecologically. It really did feel like the dawn of a winter, and on the eve of 2011 I felt like I had to be prepared for this more than at any other point. This more intensified slotting of work-making between job and sleep, felt almost like a drill, or something compensatory for the coward I always feared I’d be when pushed came to shove, for whatever one may be shoved into. The studio was so cold the pipes froze and burst around Christmas time, and with my finger-less-gloved hands I’d have to hold my pens with one hand whilst holding an hot water bottle with the other. I miss the sincerity of the devotion to getting these works done, I really do.
What music reminds me of this? In Bluer Skies, Echo and the Bunnymen
The early stages of the ironically-titled drawing, Global Ghetto, 2045, Marks The Centenary of The Defeat of Fascism
The early stages of ‘I Want None of This’
Debtland (2015)
I’ve been on and off with the idea for this piece of work for almost 2 years now, with the initial idea for a work called Debtland coming to mind traveling to Leeds via train on a cold February night I 2014. So I’m glad I finally got around to putting it all together. Sometimes the ideas for my drawings are instantaneously in the right place, and I get on with making them straight away. Pieces such as Debtland sort of grow into so etching worthwhile in the background for a year or so.
Debtland (2015, 110X77cm, mixed media on paper)
“Sad, LONELY, Frightened”
“Sad, LONELY, Frightened” (2015, A4, ink on paper)
Five MORE Years…
Five MORE Years... (A4, ink on paper)
Not Humanly Possible
Not Humanly Possible, A4, ink on paper
