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in the wake of his HIV diagnosis, which leads to
some of the most thrilling and provocative pieces in the exhibition. The Black Paintings are a series of paintings that reinterpret Caravaggio’s Renaissance work as explicitly sexual images between men. Some of the paintings like Irresistible Grace carry the formal weight of the inspirations. Others seem like a great artist doing his equivalent of dirty school boy drawings. “At the time, Margaret Thatcher legislated a thing called Section 28, which prevented public money from being used for the promotion of homosexuality,” Kissane explains. “That means you can’t really educate about HIV/AIDS, because the two things are linked. The level of ignorance about AIDS was such that people thought you could get AIDS from a toilet seat, a coffee cup.” “It also means that if you’re making any kind of queer art, you can’t get any funding, because nobody quite knows how to interpret the legislation. So, what happens when you put, as you say, ‘dirty school boy drawings’ up on the wall of the Edward Totah Gallery in the environment of Margaret Thatcher? He’s making this explicitly queer exhibition at a time when the climate is becoming increasingly repressive and homophobic. What’s remarkable about those works is the fact that they operate on an art nerd level while completely functioning as social protest.” Some of the most striking works, the Slogan Paintings, come near the end of the exhibition. By this stage, Jarman’s ailing health meant that he needed to work with two assistants, telling them which colours to pour on the canvas. When they’d prepared the canvas, Jarman would carve a message out of the paint, often inspired by tabloid headlines about HIV/AIDS. The finished works are an unflinching depicOpposite: Derek Jarman/1972c. Untitled Landscape, Private Collection, Photo Louis Haugh Above: Derek Jarman, Infection, 1993, Courtesy Amanda Wilkinson Gallery. Left: Derek Jarman, Margaret Thatcher’s Lunch, 1987 PROTEST! runs in IMMA until Sunday February 23. Free admission. A book edited by Kissane and designed by Niall Sweeney accompanies the exhibition and includes excerpts from Jarman’s own writings, short interviews with friends and collaborators and newly commissioned texts from a wide range of contributors including John Maybury, Peter Tatchell, Philip Hoare, Sir Norman Rosenthal and Olivia Laing. It will be published this Spring by Thames & Hudson. tion of terminal illness, compounded by crude messages like ‘Infection’, ‘Fuck Me Blind’ and ‘Dizzy Bitch’ that are etched into the layers of paint. Jarman imprints his physicality into the Slogan Paintings in a primal manner that stands in stark contrast to the precise work found earlier in the exhibition. Nonetheless, the exhibition ends on an optimistic note, as the viewer is brought into a room about Prospect Cottage, which Jarman used as a retreat from London. And as Kissane is keen to remind me, the audience can always end with Blue, as they have to walk back through the entrance. “It’s important to always end on a hopeful note with Jarman, because he says himself, ‘Shed no tears over this work.’” After the exhibition’s run in IMMA, the pieces will be brought to the Manchester Art Gallery where it will be re-hung by Fiona Corridan and filmmaker Jon Savage. There they will launch an exhibition book – 300 pages and 18 authors – which is the first book that compiles all of Jarman’s practices into one volume. Even then, Kissane says, extensive sections of his practice have been left out. After viewing hundreds of his works over the course of three years, I’m curious as to what has been Kissane’s biggest takeaway on Jarman himself. He takes a moment to consider. “That he couldn’t have done any of it if it wasn’t for what he was like as a person. It was his openness and his kindness and generosity and his curiosity, which I think was his most defining trait. It brought so many people into his life that wanted to work with him, who wanted to share their imaginations, and amplify his. It wouldn’t have been possible if he didn’t have that spirit.” 71