Radical 70s art & politics

Vividly capturing the art and politics of 70s London, Goodbye to London, a new publication from Hatje Cantz, depicts a city in turmoil and transition, and one almost unrecognizable today. Post 60s hippie revolution – and before the punk movement came snarling onto the scene – a thriving counterculture erupted against the backdrop of unemployment, IRA bombings and housing crisis. The mix of art, film, photography and memories collected here suggests the real sixties were in fact the seventies: there’s Peter Cross’ recollections of the South London Gay Liberation Centre in Brixton, the defining Grunwick strikes in Willesden photographed by Homer Sykes, Sacha Craddock’s memories of squatting at no.12 Tolmers Square, minus water, heat, electricity and even floorboards, while Jon Savage’s photographs document the crumbling tower block monoliths around Lancaster Gate, a hangover from 60s brutalism still visible today. Curated not by a Londoner but by one-time member of Baader-Meinhof, Astrid Proll, her experiences of arriving in London in 1974 (on a forged passport) add an intriguing outsider’s perspective on the underground scene – and she’s an appropriate figure to both celebrate the possibilities of radical thought and recognise its limitations: “I was 26 years old, and I had little more in my pocket than the address of a film collective in North London,” she remembers. “Having grown up in a provincial city in Hesse, I was suddenly in a metropolis where I could meet the whole world. It was fascinating. I came out of the Red Army Faction (RAF), which was akin to a cult, then spent four years in prison. All at once the whole world seemed open to me. London was a liberation.”

Text by Hannah Lack

Goodbye to London by Hatje Cantz is available here

Hannah Lack is Film Editor of Dazed & Confused magazine, Literary Editor of AnOther Magazine and Contributing Editor at Nowness.com