Farting at the King: Dissent at the British Museum

There are many ways to express opposition to those who run things. Armed rebellion; strikes; protest marches; or maybe something a little more subtle, less in your face. Hmm, maybe those aren't quite the right words.... ah, that's it, something a bit more pungent.

I Object: Ian Hislop's Search for Dissent at the British Museum in London is the result of a trawl by the editor of the satirical magazine Private Eye through the museum's collection to find 100 or so objects that exemplify the sometimes rather obscure ways that people from artists to artisans have challenged authority down the ages and around the globe. Some of it, as you would expect, is rather entertaining; some of it doesn't quite hit the spot. A bit like the average edition of Private Eye, then....

This show starts off with a collection of Hislop's five favourite exhibits, and let's face it, the British can't keep a good fart joke down. Richard Newton's print from 1798 shows John Bull, personifying the freeborn Englishman, breaking wind in the face of a picture of an astonished King George III. Prime Minister William Pitt shouts: "That is Treason Johnny." Newton died shortly after publication, aged just 21; one way of escaping prosecution.

The caricaturists of Georgian and Regency Britain had a huge ability to influence public opinion, and governments sometimes had to buy them off. Even in an age well before social media, prints by the likes of James Gillray and George Cruikshank were widely viewed and circulated, and both were paid sums to tone down their criticism of the Royal Family. The Prince Regent, the future George IV, was a particular target, Gillray showing him as A Voluptuary under the Horrors of Digestion, surrounded by empty bottles, unpaid bills and medicines for piles and bad breath. Cruikshank turned him into The Prince of Whales, wallowing off a beach amid mistresses and politicians.

These prints from a couple of centuries ago are among the most appealing and vibrant exhibits in this eclectic mix of a show; they're clearly among the direct forerunners of Private Eye, and even if many of the characters are unfamiliar, the cartoons remain vivid and funny.

One wonders what Gillray might have made of Donald Trump. Felines might have made a regular appearance. The release during the 2016 US election campaign of a leaked old recording of the candidate talking about grabbing women "by the pussy" led to a mass protest movement of women knitting and wearing pink woollen hats with cat's ears. This is dissent brought straight up to date, but a video of a pussyhat protest march might have been nice: This particular exhibit feels a little bit disembodied.

One very handy piece of information from this show if you want to get your message of protest spread around in America: It's apparently not illegal to deface US banknotes, though it is in Britain. So write "The CIA murdered Kennedy" on a bill, as displayed here, and it will stay in circulation. At least until it ends up in a museum.

Sometimes the money gets doctored in the process of production. How about the pre-independence Seychelles note with the word SEX apparently spelled out in the leaves of the palm trees behind the Queen?

Of course, it's not too difficult to be a dissenter in a modern democracy. Things are a bit harder in a dictatorship, such as the Zaire that President Mobutu Sese Seko ruled for three decades in the late 20th century. You can still make a big point by being indirect. Mobutu cultivated the symbol of a leopard, but this hand-woven cloth turns the image back on him, citing a Congolese proverb that says: "The skin of the leopard is beautiful, but inside it is war."

There are examples from China, too. Artist Yang Yongliang's Phantom Landscape is reminiscent of paintings from the 12th and 13th centuries. It's only when you peer a little closer that you notice a protest against industrialisation in the form of the invasive power lines creeping across the countryside.

No institution is immune from an act of subversion, and certainly not the British Museum. In 2005, Banksy installed Peckham Rock, a fragment of a "cave painting," in one of the museum's galleries, giving it a fake identification number and a label that said it was "thought to depict early man venturing towards the out-of-town hunting grounds."

It remained undetected for three days before Banksy's website alerted the museum to the hoax.

Banksy's coup is one of the highlights of this show. It's not one of the British Museum's great exhibitions but, like Private Eye, it should keep you informed -- and amused -- for a good hour or so.

Practicalities  

I Object is on at the British Museum until January 20 and is open daily from 1000 to 1730, with lates on Fridays to 2030. Full-price tickets are £12 and are bookable online here. The museum entrance is on Great Russell St, with Holborn and Tottenham Court Rd the nearest Tube stations.

Images

Richard Newton, Treason!!!, 1798. © The Trustees of the British Museum

Pink hat (Pussyhat), US, 2017. © The Trustees of the British Museum
Woven raffia cloth with image of a leaping leopard, Democratic Republic of Congo, 1970s–1990s. © The Trustees of the British Museum
Banksy, Peckham Rock, 2005. © Banksy courtesy of Pest Control Office.