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Late Wednesday evening, Jan. 5, dozens of art world insiders received a fund-raising message from Nancy Pelosi. Im in disbelief, the text began. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the violent, deadly insurrection on our nations capitol, and several reports show Republicans surging in the run-up to the midterms. We need to send a strong message that our democracy is sacred.

The message was typical enough of the calls to arms blasted by progressive campaigns and organizers like ActBlue and MoveOn. But then, the kicker: Thats why I need you to show up at the opening of artist Paul Chans new exhibition at Greene Naftali Gallery, tomorrow

Pelosi then recited the news release for Chans new show.

It turns out the text was a joke. But the subtext was not. The storming of the Capitol Building was too dire to ignore, with half a dozen lives lost, traumatized police and hundreds of rioters facing criminal charges. Chan, an artist, activist and satirist, and a winner of the prestigious Hugo Boss Prize (as the Pelosi text emphasized), is not alone among those compelled to face Jan. 6 through their artwork: The anniversary had a handful of other memorial openings.

Was Chans toonish but grave exhibition, which runs through Jan. 22, a worthwhile response? Where Trumps followers chose violence, the artist offered A drawing as a recording of an insurrection. The show features a single double-sided drawing done in brushed black ink, suspended diagonally across the gallery in a plexiglass frame. One side depicts tumbling, churning masses of protesters urged on by a blustering, Trump-like cloud. The so-called QAnon Shaman is there, centered in the banner-size composition, unmistakable with his buffalo headdress and bare nipples (Jacob Chansley his real name was sentenced to 41 months for his role). Flanking the Capitol dome, which swarms with rampaging stick-figures, the sun and crescent moon shed tears.

Beneath the zany, energetic portrayal of the MAGA throng, Chan includes the cartoon faces of stricken Capitol Police Officers, given Xs for eyes. The other side takes us inside the House chamber, where more stick figures run amok around the compositions border, hanging upside down and sideways. They stare into laptops and film one another with their blocky, brushy phones.

The exhibition seems founded in the heartfelt belief asserted by many artists in the last year that some response to the events of Jan. 6 was necessary. And how else can an artist respond, if not with art?

But the exhibition also concedes that maybe art isnt enough: the news release states that Greene Naftali will hold a voter-registration drive for the duration of Chans exhibition; those who sign up will receive an original drawing Chan made as a gesture of appreciation for affirming the basic and inalienable right to vote in America.

Lets set aside the likelihood that visitors to Chans show in Chelsea will already be seasoned voters. Its not clear that voting is enough, either, given that the exact event at issue was a rejection of due process, an attempt to void inalienable votes cast in Georgia, Arizona, and elsewhere.

Indeed, crying moon and all, the shows very earnestness can seem like a joke. According to the news release, Chan painted the Capitol picture with his left, non-dominant hand in an attempt to reduce the authority of the artists voice, and as an exercise in letting go. This deliberate de-skilling, a faux-naf embrace of pure, even childish expression, puts the work squarely in conversation with so-called outsider art, the bloody revolt of Henry Dargers Vivian Girls in particular.

Chan, of course, is very much an insider: He has exhibited in the Whitney Biennial, and is the subject of a retrospective at the Walker Art Center later this year. His response to Jan. 6 figures in a dense web of meditations on individual liberty, violence, and society, such as his major video animation, Sade for Sades Sake (exhibited at both the Venice Biennale and Greene Naftali in 2009), a jittering orgy of silhouetted figures, or his staging of Waiting for Godot in the flood-ruined Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. And stylistically, the Capitol drawing follows a series of illustrations Chan made to accompany a new English translation of a childrens book by the terse philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. In this context, at least, the overt silliness of the work has an intellectual basis.

But the activist tone of A drawing as a recording of an insurrection should be seen in the company of other artists efforts to grapple with Jan. 6 and the prevailing political winds. At Doomscrolling, an exhibition uptown at Petzel Gallery, Zorawar Sidhu and Rob Swainston presented a suite of large woodblock prints made since the start of the pandemic, comprising anxious images from their newsfeeds carved into the very sheets of plywood that protected Manhattan businesses during that summers uprisings. The wild ocher- and icy-hued January 6 joins their scenes depicting protests after George Floyds murder; the Kyle Rittenhouse killings; and the time a fly rested on Mike Pences head, among other vignettes from a divided, livestreamed nation.

The artist Andre Serrano marked the day by debuting Insurrection, a full-length documentary about Jan. 6, in Washington, D.C. The film continues Serranos treatment of Americas darkest political id which includes a series about torture, and portraits of Ku Klux Klansmen by presenting a video of the riot in the style of D.W. Griffiths Birth of a Nation. (He is also no stranger to the culture wars: Serranos photograph Piss Christ has the distinction of having been denounced on the Senate floor in 1989.)

In the past year, Robert Longo, a member of the Pictures Generation, has added an image of Jan. 6 to his catalog of iconic photos of American unrest since 2016, rendered as exactingly detailed, mural-scale charcoal drawings. And the current Prospect.5 triennial in New Orleans includes a fiery history painting of the Capitol attack by Celeste Dupuy-Spencer, titled Dont You See That I Am Burning, based on a line from Freuds dream book.

Mark Meadows. Mr. Trumps chief of staff, who initially provided the panel with a trove of documents that showed the extent of his rolein the efforts to overturn the election, is now refusing to cooperate. The House voted to recommend holding Mr. Meadows in criminal contempt of Congress.

Scott Perry and Jim Jordan. The Republican representatives of Pennsylvaniaand Ohioare among a group of G.O.P. congressmenwho were deeply involved in efforts to overturn the election. Both Mr. Perryand Mr. Jordanhaverefused to cooperatewith the panel.

Michael Flynn. Mr. Trumps former national security adviser attended an Oval Office meeting on Dec. 18 in which participants discussed seizing voting machines and invoking certain national security emergency powers. Mr. Flynn has filed a lawsuitto block the panels subpoenas.

Phil Waldron. The retired Army colonelhas been under scrutiny since a 38-page PowerPoint documenthe circulated on Capitol Hill was turned over to the panel by Mr. Meadows. The document contained extreme plans to overturn the election.

John Eastman. The lawyer has been the subject of intense scrutinysince writing a memothat laid out how Mr. Trump could stay in power. Mr. Eastman was present at a meeting of Trump allies at the Willard Hotelthat has becomea prime focus of the panel.

Each of these artists has chosen an essentially realistic, more or less heightened rendition of the chaos and rage as it unfurled on our many screens, as if, through scale or repetition or insistence, a review of the awful facts could emphasize the seriousness of that clash, if not change the world.

But Chans approach seems confused. Politically, the work is intensely earnest. Yet the drawings waves of sketchy minions are laughable, executed like a throwaway gag. Making and exhibiting the work may have satisfied Chans sense of virtue, but the result does little for his audiences understanding of the attack. And the show as a whole, with its news release and voter drive, is an ambivalent gesture, as if the artist himself isnt sure how serious hes being.

For a counterpoint to liberal arts, from a messenger who is nothing if not certain of his mission, see Jon McNaughtons recent painting, Solitary Confinement, posted on the artists website in October.

A painter of blunt conservative allegories and a Republican darling (the Fox host and Trump confidant Sean Hannity is a collector), McNaughton first gained notoriety for a portrait of President Obama burning the Constitution. McNaughtons contribution to the Jan. 6 canon is unexpectedly subtle, and unmistakable: Solitary Confinement shows a man huddled and shackled in a cold stone cell, the heavenly light from the barred windows gracing his red MAGA cap and khaki jumpsuit.

Above his shoulder, etched into the prison wall, are several dates: 1/06/2021, of course, but also 11/08/2022 and 11/05/2024the next two federal elections.

Travis Diehl, a critic, is the online editor at X-TRA, the Los Angeles-based arts journal.

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Artists Respond to Jan. 6 With Brushes and Ballots - The New York Times

When the defence urged the jury to be on the right side of history, he won the admiration of historian David Olusoga and Labour MP Clive Lewis. But I wonder how many other members of the public think it is okay for Britains legal representatives to allow their function to be so dramatically changed on the basis of claims of perceived hurt and hate? You would hope that historian Olusoga would be sensitive to the fact that in the past, when people claim to be on the right side of history, things have not always ended well.

Egged on and flattered by a culture where feelings trump reason, and victimhood is the preferred currency for social status and material gains, Jake Skuse, Rhian Graham, Milo Ponsford and Sage Willoughby might well feel like they are heroes in some fantasy liberation struggle.

But the verdict shows that acts, which if committed by others at different times, or different others today, would be recognised and condemned as criminal, are now resoundingly praised by the law itself.

Whether you think this is progress or regress, it shows that todays self-styled warriors have little in common with genuinely inspiring radicals and freedom fighters of the past. The likes of Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Mandela or, more recently, people of Syria, faced violent oppression and repression in real life.

If statues were toppled it was part of a broader political struggle where the stakes were higher than hurt feelings.

Symbolic gestures can be important, but not when they are substitutes for politics itself. People who disagree with their politics can still find them admirable.

I doubt the same could be said for the Colston Four.

Parents often see a budding Picasso in their toddlers drawings, this is understandable, if mildly irritating.

Now lawyers are joining the queue of adults who encourage the young to see adolescent rage as political radicalism - and they are doing no-one any favours.

They only fuel a validation of victimhood and feelings over reasoned politics.

This is not a good basis for forging the kind of democratic politics and humane culture we need today.

It also encourages an extension of adolescence, witness the ages of the Colston Four (33, 30, 26 and 22 respectively).

Patrick Vernon conceded that while the toppling of Colstons statue was essentially performative, it opens an important national debate.

His view was that had the Colston Four been black, the verdict would have been very different.

This may have been likely 20 or 30 years ago, but today, his conclusion misses an important change in the meaning and function of anti-racism.

In the past, anti-racism was largely part of a struggle of people across lines of colour, united as equal citizens working out how to ensure the democratic ideals of equality and freedom were fulfilled.

It appealed to peoples sense of universal justice and encouraged social solidarity.

An accepted tenet of older anti-racism was that individuals are moral equals, even if our social status and political views differ.

Today, anti-racisms meaning and function is very different.

It is now an ideological weapon of choice for corporate HR departments and the elites who have power in our public social, cultural and academic institutions to render majority beliefs and opinions morally invalid: tainted by their association with a one-sided representation of Britains past.

Today anti-racism sees Britains history and cultural tradition as gravestones dead and silent whose only influence can be moral putrefaction.

This is deeply disempowering because without recourse to cultural and intellectual inheritances, it is harder to get our bearings, and make better judgements about the world we have in common today.

When QC Liam Walker confidently claimed that the continuing existence of Colstons statue amounted to continued veneration of his dastardly deeds, and the defendants claimed it was a hate crime, the tacit message is that if you dont hate the statue in the way we do, you can only be racist.

Who are the haters here?

Most people I know are capable of a wider range of responses, not to mention self-control, than the learned QC or the passionate faux radicals credit them with.

When Skuse claimed I knew I was in the right...everyone wanted the same thing, it suggested he cannot imagine an opinion different to his own.

Like Christina Jordan, a former South West MEP and first generation immigrant from Malaysia, for example, who said: I dont need the Sages and Milos of our country toppling a 127-year-old statue because they think they should protect me from hurt feelings.

Protection and patronage are not freedom and equality.

Dr Alka Sehgal Cuthbert is Head of Education atDon't Divide Us. They describe themselves as "people who are taking a stand against the divisive obsession with peoples racial identity".

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Brilliant expos of the moral wasteland of Britain's culture wars is a must read COMMENT - Express

Over the weekend, Washington Post business editor Lori Montgomery tweeted, then deleted, criticism of a column that called Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback BenRoethlisberger a real jackass. The only interesting thing about Drew Magarys article, Montgomery, a native of Butler County, Pennsylvania (north of Pittsburgh), tweeted, was how easily disproven and completely FOS [full of shit] it is.

The column addressed, among other incidents, accusations of sexual assault that women have made against Roethlisberger. And with her Friday night tweet, Montgomery kicked a hornets nest that has grown inside the Posts internal culture for some time now.

A little more than an hour after Montgomery tweeted her defense of Roethlisberger, Post national political reporter Felicia Sonmez screenshotted it and noted that Magarys column referenced facts the Post reported as well.

And here is where things get complex. After Kobe Bryant died in January 2020, Sonmez tweeted a link to a Daily Beast article about Bryant settling a sexual-assault lawsuit. She faced intense backlash online and was suspended by the Postformer Executive Editor Marty Baron told her she was hurting the publication. Staffers and the Post Guild protested the suspension, and the paper, whose social media policies date to 2011, soon reinstated her.

Sonmez wasnt the only staffer to run afoul of the Posts unclear rules about social media. Former Post reporter Wesley Lowery was chastised by managementfor criticizing an article by New York Times journalist Jeremy Peters, a rule he said in a response was broken daily, by many members of the newsroom. He has since left the Post.

Both of these events evince a simmering culture war in many newsrooms: Broadly speaking, some journalists chafe at newspapers traditionally top-down cultures, while others can be aghast at what they view as attention-seeking antics. (These schisms frequently break along generational lines: I reported last year that as he searched for Barons replacement, Post Publisher Fred Ryan asked candidates about how theyd keep the newsroom under control.)

At the Post, Sonmezs suspension raised furtherquestions not only about her career but also about whether the Post is a workplace where people who have survived traumaticexperiences like sexual assault can continue to do their jobs and feel safe and supported. Unlike Lowery, Sonmez stayed at the Post, and last July she sued her employer, saying that after she revealed to higher ups that she had been the victim of sexual assault, they had banned her from any coverage that touched on the subject. Among the Post brass Sonmez named as defendants in the suit: Lori Montgomery.

The suit says Montgomery told Ms. Sonmez that she was always taught that a woman should just say no if a man tries to assault her. Montgomery was at the time the Posts deputy national editor; Sally Buzbee, who replaced Baron as executive editor last year, named Montgomery editor of the business desk in late July. The Post has moved to dismiss Sonmezs case.

Others named in Sonmezs lawsuit have been since been promoted as well, including Cameron Barr, who was one of the Posts managing editors and in October wasnamed Buzbees second-in-command. Barr and Steven Ginsberg, who was national editor and Sonmezs boss, both applied for the executive editor gig but lost out to Buzbee. Last week the Post named Ginsberg one of its managing editors. Tracy Grant, the managing editor for standards who was also named in Sonmezs suit, requested a return to writing, Buzbee wrote in a memo this past October.

So! Given this significant volume of backstory, why on earth would Montgomery stir the pot with, of all things, a tweet that criticized a non-Post journalists article, which involved allegations of sexual assault? Montgomery apparently thought better of her original post the next day; she wrote at lunchtime Saturday that shed deleted the tweet and did not intend to question the validity of the accusations against Roethlisberger. Montgomery wrote that she has been sexually assaulted myself and deeply regret my poorly-framed tweet. (Montgomery has since locked her account.)

In an email, Post spokesperson Kristine Coratti Kelly writes that Montgomerys tweet was inappropriate, and the issue has been addressed internally. The papers social media policy will be updated once the Post hires a new standards editor, she writes, and will be done with staff input.Sonmez declined to comment to Washingtonian, but she posted thisthread over the weekend:

On Monday the Posts Guild sent a note to members that called Montgomerys tweet unacceptable, irresponsible and harmful and said the unions leadership has asked the masthead to address this incident with staff and take concrete steps to make sure survivors feel safe and not silenced. The note also encourages Post employees to ask Buzbee about the incident.

As it happens, in a separate memo sent to staffers Monday, Buzbee announced three town halls to be held on Zoom on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week to discuss news goals for 2022, ambitions for the future, how we hope to keep staff/team communication strong in the continued pandemic, and anything else you want to discuss. There will be time for questions during the meetings, Buzbee writes. It seems likely that Montgomerys tweet may come up.

This article has been updated.

Join the conversation!

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A Washington Post Editor's "Inappropriate" Tweet Is Fanning the Culture Wars Inside the Paper - Washingtonian

Duncan Wheeler, University of Leeds

Spains bullfighting season traditionally kicks off in February in Valdemorillo, a small town located approximately 40km outside of Madrid. It wouldnt usually attract big names, but in 2022, star matador Morante de la Puebla has confirmed his appearance. In a profession characterised by internal divisions, there is a growing sense that the coming season needs to be a success if bullfighting is not to disappear altogether.

Bullfighting has been banned in Catalonia since 2011, but in the rest of the country, the conversation has switched since the onset of the pandemic. Where once the debate focused on prohibition, the question now is whether a lifeline ought to be granted to this ailing cultural industry. The current left-wing coalition government appears not to have the political will to explicitly prohibit what was once known as the national fiesta, or, conversely, to provide support to keep it running. Hence, for example, tickets for corridas were pointedly excluded from a scheme announced by prime minister Pedro Snchez in October last year, whereby young people would be given 400-euro cultural passes to prop up various sectors.

Bullfights are reviewed in the arts rather than the sports sections of Spanish newspapers and fall under the purview of the Ministry of Culture. Declared illegal by the Spanish constitutional court in 2016, the Catalan ban was as much about political grandstanding as protecting animal rights. In the wake of the 2017 illegal independence referendum, the xenophobic and anti-immigration Vox party exploited anti-Catalan and pro-bullfighting sentiment in its campaigning and has become the third-biggest force in Spanish politics. Morante de la Puebla often joins party leader Santiago Abascal on the campaign trail.

But Vox has more to gain from the relationship than bullfighters, especially in rural areas where Abascals party has successfully attracted single-issue pro-bullfighting and hunting voters. The far-right has provided some protection for the profession, but it has also turned it into a more highly prized target. An increasing number of progressive citizens have a visceral dislike of bullfighting because it is seen as the last bastion for reactionaries with no place in a 21st-century European democracy.

In the cultural wars of contemporary Spain, the anti-bullfighting lobby is often too quick to brand aficionados as the cigar-smoking relics of the Francoist regime. Defenders of the national fiesta, meanwhile, preclude any debate on its future by dismissing all potential objections out of hand as manifestations of puritanical censorship. As a result, it is virtually impossible to have a serious debate on bullfighting, an emotive subject which has been weaponised by politicians across the ideological spectrum.

At the local level, city councils have no legal jurisdiction to issue a blanket ban, but they can withhold licences. In the northern coastal town of Gijon, socialist mayor Ana Gonzlez has announced the municipal bullring will from now on be used for live music rather than corridas. Her decisions came after, in her words, a line was crossed: two bulls killed last summer were named El nigeriano (The Nigerian) and another El feminista (The Feminist). The presence of Morante de la Puebla at the event gave this the look of a deliberate provocation, but was probably a coincidence. Fighting bulls inherit their names from their mother, so these monikers will have been handed down to the bulls from previous generations rather than having been thought of afresh. That said, exceptions have been made in the past. The first bull faced by the legendary Manolete as a fully fledged matador in 1939 had been baptised El Comunista (The Communist) under the short-lived Second Republic (1931-36). Such a name was anathema following General Francos victory in the Civil War (1936-39) and The Communist was diplomatically renamed El mirador (The Viewer).

Either way, the case is an example of how the bullfighting lobby has become something of an echo chamber. There is often a failure to understand how it is perceived from the outside. An open letter by the president of the Fighting Bulls Association was a gift to satirists, with its claims that the closure of the Gijon venue was somehow comparable to the destruction of religious artefacts by fundamentalists:

The Taliban, much like the Mayor of Gijon, forget that neither the Buddhas of Bamiyan nor the bulls belong to them, but are rather common heritage of mankind.

In Gonzlezs view, aficionados have had their way for too long, and now is the time to listen to the many citizens of Gijon who oppose bullfighting. In recent years, animal rights activists have organised large demonstrations outside of the bullring. During the pandemic, they have taken the moral high ground by staying at home while accusing the impresario of posing a danger to public (as well as animal) health.

Even ignoring the abolitionist movement, bullfighting is a broken business model. It faces particular challenges that will make survival even harder as the pandemic lingers. Spains premiere bullrings (Bilbao, Madrid, Pamplona, Seville, Valencia, Zaragoza), have been largely inactive for two years. But with an ageing audience and some social distancing measures likely to remain in place, the return of corridas requires a sacrifice from matadors and breeders. They will have to significantly reduce their fees if impresarios are to break even.

There are fixed costs associated with bullfighting that make it difficult to do on a smaller scale. Tales of the demise in popularity appear much exaggerated when major corridas can attract 10,000 plus spectators, but a handful of elite matadors aside, fewer contracts are on the table as provincial rings close. Much like the pandemic, there will probably not be a specific day on which bullfighting ends, but it seems unlikely to thrive in its current guise for much longer.

Duncan Wheeler, Professor in Spanish Studies, University of Leeds

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Coronavirus and culture wars: Spains bullfighting industry faces a crunch point in 2022 - Qrius

Prince Charles has no doubt learned patience in his wait for the top job. Hes certainly a dab hand at playing the long game. His campaign against modern architecture began with a 1984 speech at Londons historic Hampton Court where he rubbished a proposed extension to the National Gallery as a monstrous carbuncle. The scheme was promptly dropped. As heir to the throne, he said, with no apparent self-consciousness, he saw it as a problem that the avant-garde had become the establishment. He went on to build Poundbury, his Classical-style model village outside the Dorset town of Dorchester. Charles also set up his Institute of Architecture among whose six founding principles was to build beautifully.

Alongside the prince were traditionalists such as the tweedy culture warrior Sir Roger Scruton, who blamed the dissolute 1960s for societal decay and believed, against all the evidence, that beauty was not only unchanging and eternal but linked to morality. This was amid the 1980s culture wars that set Thatcherism against the so-called political correctness of local councils.

Three decades later, the culture wars are again in full swing. The apoplexy with which governments have responded to calls to topple monuments since the death of George Floyd in May 2020 is not surprising but needs to be seen in this same contexta struggle for cultural hegemony.

This time around, the traditionalist lunatics have succeeded in taking over the asylum. Reactionary ideas hostile to the cosmopolitan, to Modernism, to modernity itself, are in the ascendant. Tory placemen (and they are generally men) are being appointed to the boards of cultural institutions such as the British Museum and the BBC. The thoroughly middle-class National Trust is under attack as woke for exploring colonialism (a similar report by English Heritage several years earlier provoked nothing like the same outrage). Laws are proposed that would hand out longer sentences for damaging a statue than for rape. A government retain and explain policy for monuments essentially amounts to retain everything and explain nothing.

This is not unique to Britain, of coursejust look at Viktor Orbn in Hungary or the history wars in Poland, or the manufactured outrage by the Macron government over Islamo-gauchisme and mosques or other visual expressions of Islam. Switzerland, Spain and Denmark are among other countries gripped by minaret-phobia. In Germany and Eastern Europe, modern post-war city centres are being rebuilt as ersatz historic quarters full of fake traditional architecture. The same thing was happening under Donald Trump, who issued an executive order demanding that all new federal buildings be in a Classical style. Beauty and tradition have become dog-whistle words to white supremacists drunk on the Great Replacement conspiracy theory that sees a cultural genocide of Christian Europe at the hands of immigrants. Classicism is not inherently right-wing but traditional architecture has become a vehicle of choice for the Right and Far Right.

Traditionalist city-making ideas have been brewing for some time, now pushed by right-wing think-tanks such as the Policy Exchange and Legatum Institute, who are hostile to both public housing and fetters on the market, and whose adherents are now in government. Policy Exchange reports inspired the governments Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission, headed by the late Sir Roger that pushed a traditionalist architectural agenda. Among the outcomes are proposed design codes for areas that would make it hard for council planners to resist developers who tick the codes boxes. A key figure is Scruton acolyte Nicholas Boys Smith, a former financier and adviser to former UK Prime Minister David Cameron, who succeeded Scruton at the Building Better Commission. He set up Create Streets, which champions traditional city-making, and is now an Historic England commissioner as well as heading up the governments new Office for Place.

Despite explicitly aiming to promote beauty, the opposite is more likely because it all interlocks with a bonfire of planning controls. These make it easy, for example, to turn houses and offices into substandard housing without planning permission and reduce the publics right to object to proposals. A planning White Paper would upend the post-war system creating simplified zones to encourage development. It is as if a Georgian speculative builders pattern book could be applied to the 21st century.

For the moment at least, the worst excesses of the style traditionalists have been frustrated: a proposed fast track through planning for development deemed beautiful seen as unworkable, for instance. The White Paper is being reviewed after the Tories lost last years Chesham and Amersham by-election, partly because of electors fears of the countryside being concreted. The direction of travel, however, remains.

Monuments, where values and historical narratives coalesce, are simply the obvious pointy end of this culture war. In many ways they are a distraction. In Britain at least, the insidious iceberg is traditionalism hand-in-glove with free marketeers intent on handing developers free rein.

Robert Bevan is a member of the Mayor of Londons Diversity in the Public Realm Commission, which is holding a round table on contested heritage this month. He is writing in a personal capacity. His book, Monumental Lies: Culture Wars & the Truth About the Past, will be published later this year by Verso

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The ugly pursuit of beauty: how traditional architecture has become a battleground for right-wing politicians - Art Newspaper