Alter 1789

Ideas and Images ot Revolution

Dawn Ades/J.G. PosadaTony Arefin/Simon PattersonConrad AtkinsonMaya BalciogluGuy Brett/John DuggerStuart BrisleyNigel CoatesJohn GotoPaul Gilroy/C.L.R. JamesDan Graham and Marie-Paule MacdonaldLubaina HimidDavid King/Russia - Revolution and Counter RevolutionRichard LayzellJean Michel MassingMichael Newman/Ernesto TatafioreAdrian RitkinJamie ReidSurrealismMarina Warner/FransMasereelEdward Wright/Elisa Vargas- Chile and Counter RevolutionPatrick WrightRichard Wrigley

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15Ju|y- 17 september l989Publication compiled and edited by Hilary Gresty

Ernesto Iataliorel.a vertu, les souvenirs, Robespierre, c`|98lPencil, crayon, collage on paper, 52 x 40.5 Collection Michael Newman

'His virtue produced in him a bliss sweeter than the pleasure a woman'sbeauty would have elicited, and which is not exposed to exhaustion assensual pleasure is. Happier in the pleasures he renounced than thevoluptuary is in the pleasures he enioys, he loved longer, remained free,and enioyed life more than those who use it up. ' (Jean Jacques Rousseau, Lesamours de milord Edouard Bomston, oeuvres complete, Paris: Pleiade, v. ii,p.790.)

'In the Duplay’s house he occupied two small rooms overlooking aninner courtyard and a neighbouring Nunnery garden. His study, saysBarbaroux, with a spice of exaggeration, was a "pretty boudoir in which hisown likeness was repeated in every form, and by every art - in paintingson the right hand wall, in engravings on the left; his bust at the end of theroom, and his bas-relief portrait on the tables.” There he sat, when he wasnot out at the Assembly or the Jacobins, working at his letters and speeches.He seldom dined out, preferring quiet evenings at home - oranges andpreserved fruit after dinner; perhaps a little music, with Lebas playing theviolin, and Buonarotti at the piano. Sometimes he would read aloud fromRacine or Corneille; occasionally there was a visit to the theatre; or a Sundayexcursion into the country, with the Duplay family and his dog 'Brount. ' (J.M.Thompson, ’Robespierre’, leaders ofthe French Revolution, (1929), Oxford;Basil Blackwell, l968 pp.234-5.)

The spirit of sell-alienation has its existence in the world ol culture.But since this whole has become alienated from itself, there stands beyondthat world the unreal world of pure consciousness, or ol thought.' (GeorgWilhelm Frederich Hegel, Phenomenology ofthe spirit, trans, A.V. Miller,Oxford: O.U.P., I977, p.32l .)

Ernesto Tatafiore was born in 1943 in ltaly. Over the past ten yearshe has based his work on Maximilien Robespierre and 'the conflicting natureof his political and humanistic ideals and his extreme virtuousness, which inthe end always brings about their negation since power- for instance- is

necessary an applying them’ (Martin Kunz, Cafe Robespierre, exhibitioncatalogue, lsy Brachot, Paris, 1989) 'Great achievements like those of theFrench Revolution demand incredible sacrifices for the sake of an idea. Wecan accept this but can we understand it? Tatafiore's work tries to answer thisquestion, even by simply repeating it. He reminds us, in fact, that thequestion is still unanswered( (Jean-Christophe Ammann, ibid.). Exhibitionsinclude Galerie lsy Brachot, Paris and Galleria Anders Tornberg, Lund) both1989.

Image and accompanying texts selected by art critic and lecturer MichaelNewman. His exhibitions include, 'The analytical theatre: new art fromBritain', which toured the U.S.A, Canada and Mexico, 1987-88 and hispublications include 'Revising modernism, representing post modernism',reprinted Postmodernism: I.C.A. Documents, London; Free AssociationBooks, 1989.