This Crate has again been long underway, and yet funnily enough I started preparing it the same day I published the last one. Somehow the John Lennon song got stuck in my head and I knew there and then that it'll be the topic of the next Crate. After being at the forefront for the decades throughout the Cold War, social class has become somewhat of a taboo topic in the current neoliberal era. So, until a new societal current washes it ashore again, let's open this Crate and have a look.
The original 'Working Class Hero', by John Lennon from 1970. The Green Day made an excellent cover version of it in 2007.
An anthropologist's view on the state of work by David Graeber - the famous 'Bullshit jobs' (translated to Greek as 'Bullshit jobs - μια θεωρία').
We think of slums as something belonging to Third World countries in deep poverty, and yet we have forgotten that in the same glorified hippie age of 60's and 70's, numerous people in London, Liverpool, Glasgow and other large UK cities were living in dwellings unfit for human habitation. I do wonder how different the conditions were in mainland Europe.
"The country is grey and / brown and white in trees/ snows and skies of laughter / always diminishing, less funny /not just darker, not just grey" writes the contemporary New York poet Frank O'Hara in his 'Mayakovski'. Here is also a beautifully read piece of his 'Meditations In An Emergency'.
Artist with roots in the working class is a rare breed indeed - and yet there are some who have risen into the art history books right from the bottom - like the Dutch-born Abstract Expressionist Willem de Kooning, the Australian Impressionist Clara Southern, English wildlife painter Charles Tunnicliffe, Cubist and Vorticist David Bomberg - the later inspiration of David Bowie - and the Avant-Garde Dadaist Elsa Baroness von Freytag-Loringhoven (who, mind you, got the title of Baroness from her third husband).
(from left to right - de Kooning, Southern, Tunnicliffe, Bomberg, von Freytag-Loringhoven)
6. However, as always, things could be worse - we could still be living in the Victorian age, where workhouse was an option for the desperately poor, forced labour a regular form of punishment and child labour common. A cast of actors has been trying out the life in Victorian workhouse and factory for 24 hours, which makes for a fascinating watch. As for forced labour, let's remember the first scene of 'Les Miserables' where Jean Valjean has just finished his sentence and I'll leave it to Horrible Histories to remind us of the reality of child labour.
7. The series 'Severance' and 'Sherwood' that deal with the issue of work and working class in very different, yet interesting ways - and noone reminds us of the daily absurdity better than the old classic 'Office Space'.
8. What would the 90's have been without Britpop and 'Common People'?
9. Dolly Parton and Donna Summer, both giving a piece of their mind about the 9-5 toil.
10. And let's finish off with a little cartoon from Hannah Hillam.
So long and until the next Crate!