All That Is Solid Melts Into Air - An Exhibition Curated by Jeremy Deller

All That Is Solid Melts Into Air - An Exhibition Curated by Jeremy Deller at Manchester Art Gallery.
15th January 2013

OVERVIEW

An at first seemingly unconnected group of artifacts, paintings, photographs and sound recordings, the exhibition uses the well known photograph, taken by Dennis Hutchinson in 1973, of the wrestler Adrian Street visiting his father at the pit of the mining village he grew up in. This gives an indication of the rest of the works, as the whole thing is one long juxtaposition of industrial, working class culture.

Adrian Street with his father at the pithead of Brynmawr Colliery, Wales, 1973 Hutchinson, Dennis.

Although not immediately obvious, despite the amount of wall space given up to it, the centrepiece in many ways is the jukebox, which plays old worksongs, folk songs and sounds from industrial machines, neatly showing the connection between music, industry and working conditions, many of the songs being comments or complaints about the working conditions themselves.  Paintings of male miners are placed directly opposite photographs of female workers, the paintings crudely done and uniform, no way to differentiate the miners at all, no identity to speak of. There are more recent but still historical photographs of Salford, a city born from the docks that are no longer in use, then a ravaged post industrial mess, now a bustling network of glass fronted offices, shopping malls  and expensive hotels. Is there any real difference between a miner from the 1900's and the Amazon warehouse workers of today? It seems to show that overall, however modernised we seem to be or think we are, that the working classes are treated with the same casual disregard as they ever were, and that the management and the owners may well have to present a friendlier face, but in the end, its the same as it ever was.

Connections

James Sharples (1825-92) was a self-taught English artist born at Wakefield in Yorkshire. . During his spare time he learned to read and write.  He subsequently began to make figure and landscape drawings, and copy lithographs.
Sharples took up painting when he was eighteen. The following year he started work on The Forge, after which he made this engraving. He completed it in 1847, having worked on it in his spare time for three years. While making the painting he attempted to work full-time as an artist, but he was unable to sustain himself financially.

The Forge, Sharples, James, 1847

The painting shows a predominantly dark picture, the only point of light being the forge itself, a searing highlight of white, a group of men working hard, but as a team to make whatever it is they're forging, something made of iron or steel.
The Judas Priest album, Unleashed in the East, recorded in Japan in the late 1970's, isnt obviously connected, yet is a group of men working to make something tangible, a group of working class men, all from the Midlands, all whose recent forefathers were miners or factory workers, all wearing a type of uniform connected to the music itself, the music called Heavy Metal, arguably invented by another 4 working class men from the Midlands, Black Sabbath, a sound that the band freely admit was inspired by the rhythm
of industrial machines from the factories they worked in.

Unleashed in the East, Judas Priest, cover art, Photography Costello, Fin,1979.