Abstract
The aim of this themed issue of the journal of visual culture is to present new approaches to the history of the Independent Group. As a result, existing disciplinary boundaries are questioned and disturbed, and a new, more inclusive approach proposed.
This loose assembly of ambitious practitioners first met at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) London in April 1952. The Group presents an important case study in visual culture as it included fine artists, architects, designers, musicians and writers. Lawrence Alloway, Reyner Banham, Frank and Magda Cordell, John McHale, Richard Hamilton, Eduardo Paolozzi, Toni del Renzio, Alison and Peter Smithson, James Stirling, William Turnbull, Colin St John Wilson and Edward Wright were all key members. The output of the Group was also broad ranging, from painting, sculpture and prints to best-selling albums, ground-breaking exhibitions, films, modernist buildings and interiors. The published writing of the Independent Group also provides an important context for its work.
In the intervening 60 years, the Group has been the subject of many interpretations and representations. The Group continues to be feted as ‘the Fathers of Pop’, an approach instigated by the members and reinforced in contemporary art history. However, this teleological approach misses out what is so important and so vital for an understanding of visual culture. This themed issue takes architecture and design into account, as well as material on popular culture. The uncertainty of the archive and new readings of the metropolitan landscape are also included. This presents an opportunity to reflect on historiography and the creation of knowledge in the digital age. In re-evaluating this history within new contexts, a broader and more inclusive history is forged.
Ben Highmore focuses on the Independent Group as a multidisciplinary project, and one which drew energy from the educational context of its creation. Many of the members were involved in the teaching of design, and this activity formed one context for the Group. Beginning with a discussion of New Brutalist wallpaper, Highmore considers the Independent Group as a pluralist collective. Victoria Walsh continues this discussion, with an examination of the exhibition Parallel of Life and Art and the practice of Hammer Prints, founded by Nigel Henderson and Eduardo Paolozzi in 1954. Walsh locates her discussion of this work within the context of Gestalt theory, contemporary concepts of pattern as well as Malraux and Duchamp’s approach to the idea of the museum.
Stephen Kite also takes a consideration of contemporary theories of pattern into account with his examination of the often overlooked Independent Group member, Colin St John Wilson. Kite demonstrates the importance of psychoanalysis and Adrian Stokes’s article ‘Form in Art’ (1955) in particular for the architect’s work. In my article, I keep the focus on overlooked Independent Group contributors with an account of the work of Dorothy Morland. As Director at the ICA, she was pivotal to the formation and continuation of the Group, as well as ensuring the preservation of its history in subsequent years.
Barry Curtis turns our attention to ‘Tomorrow’ and demonstrates that the future was of central concern to the Independent Group, and to society at large. Thrilling and threatening at the same time, it was of prime interest to contributors to This Is Tomorrow in 1956. Richard Hornsey takes a consideration of the Independent Group onto the streets of London’s West End. He argues that the official post-war consensus of British culture was contested by the practice of the Independent Group, in terms of writing and film making.
The themed issue ends with Ben Cranfield’s reading of the Independent Group within the broader history of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA). Cranfield recognises that the newly formed Institute provided an important rhetorical space for the Group to declare its approach to the contemporary. And so the journal of visual culture has provided the authors with a vital space to explore the broader meaning and significance of the Group. This issue brings together new readings of this pivotal moment in post-war visual culture, and demands it be looked at with more integrity and depth than has become the accepted norm. With thanks to all the contributing authors, who also took part in the conference, BUNK: 60 Years of the Independent Group at the ICA in April 2012. May we continue to ask questions.