An interview with Nicholas Baldion in response to his painting ‘Social Murder: Grenfell in Three Parts’, 2023
By Andy Jackson, with an introduction by Lauren Velvick.
My aim here is to contextualise an interview by painter Andy Jackson, currently undertaking a PhD at Sheffield Hallam University, with another painter, Nicholas Baldion, whose work won the Visitor’s Choice Prize at the 2023 John Moores Painting Prize in Liverpool. I met Jackson whilst giving a careers talk to students. In his own words, he is a painter not a writer, but in order to be awarded a PhD (even in painting), one must write. As such, his interview questions are asked from a painterly perspective, and reference academic texts that he has recently engaged with, rather than coming from a journalistic and investigative perspective. In the talk I explained the history of Corridor8 and how and why we’ve ended up doing things the way we do. When Jackson came to speak to me afterwards and offered to send us this interview, he mentioned a number of salient details that aren’t covered in the text itself. With this in mind, the way in which the interview came about, as well as how it came to me, exemplifies many of the intersecting social and political issues that have a bearing on what we do and why.
An open submission competition, the John Moores operates with a different jury each edition who select the entrants as well as the final winner, with the exhibition taking place over several months; we published a review of the exhibition by Reece Griffiths in November 2023. Each year there is the main prize, awarded by the Jury, and the Visitor’s Choice award, voted on by those who visit the exhibition in Liverpool throughout its run. Last year, the Visitor’s Choice winner was ‘Social Murder: Grenfell in Three Parts’ (2023) by Nicholas Baldion, a powerful triptych which uses the recognisable form of a medieval altar piece to depict scenes that, together, form a narrative around the central image. There are the grotesque, laughing and reddened faces of politicians alongside overcrowded residents’ meetings surrounding the now unmistakable image of the tower engulfed by flames. Jackson explained to me that he was dismayed to realise that this painting hadn’t been covered by any arts press, which is what drove him to contact Baldion. During our initial conversation in Sheffield, Jackson mentioned that the BBC would usually cover the John Moores Visitors’ Choice Prize, but this time had opted not to. This could potentially be seen as censorship, he argued, and so I investigated this claim. The BBC had indeed covered the Visitor’s Choice Prize in 2021, publishing an online article with the slightly mocking lede, ‘a painting of a shoe has taken a major award which was voted for by visitors to an art exhibition.’ However I couldn’t find any record of coverage from other years, at least not online. Perhaps, then, it’s less censorship than a lack of interest or an inability to process this work through the mainstream understanding of contemporary art: ‘Social Murder: Grenfell in Three Parts’ certainly couldn’t be covered in such a light, mocking tone. To consider censorship of art in the UK in the present moment: it’s done politely and backhandedly, generally to bolster and preserve the reputation of an institution in the long term, until after whatever issue is at stake has blown over. This is particularly farcical and alarming to observe during the ongoing Palestinian Genocide, through which arts organisations who have traded on the radical credentials of the artists they work with are suddenly cowed into cancelling events, and the behind-the-scenes panic of directors and marketing teams stands in absurd contrast to the bland tone of the institutional voice.
This ongoing reality is referenced in March’s Art Monthly magazine (AM474) by Morgan Quaintance in his blistering appraisal of Chris Ofili’s ‘Requiem’ mural at Tate Britain, arguing that the piece ‘will emerge as a form of pseudo-activism (a gesture leading to “spectator” inaction, passivity or stupefaction, as opposed to what Jacques Rancière might describe as “spectator activation”), a type of hollow political engagement that is paradigmatic of certain established institutions’. Quaintance goes on to discuss the nature of Tate, along with references to other longstanding London institutions, pointing to practices of potential blacklisting and outlining some of the instances whereby curators, editors and artists had apparently gone ‘too far’, and had been reprimanded with cancelled programmes and forced resignations. He then discusses the form and content of Ofili’s ‘Requiem’, criticising the artist’s choice of a ‘magical register’ to represent a tragedy that was so clearly and directly caused by human greed and negligence, contrasting this with mural tradition, the power of which traditionally lies in ‘its ability to present details or the overarching story of a historic event or set of socio-political conditions in such a manner that viewers are both informed and empowered by the knowledge imparted’.
Baldion’s triptych is explicitly part of this latter tradition, and in his conversation with Jackson he discusses some of the other modes of display that the work has embodied. Quaintance’s piece ends with a reflection on the meaning and use of memorialisation and remembrance in the context of Grenfell, pointing to the inadequacy of the typical terminology used in institutional interpretations of care, concluding that ‘it is possible, in the case of survivors and those closely affected by the fire, that this act of induced remembrance is actually redundant; that forgetting the fire, the destruction, the death and the displacement is already an impossibility’. Baldion’s triptych is explicitly cited as an activist work, and doesn’t assume that anyone, let alone survivors and the surrounding community, would need prompting to remember Grenfell. Indeed, the triptych altarpiece form was chosen specifically so that the work could be covered and remain unseen. Its selection as Visitor’s Choice clearly demonstrates a resonance with the public in Liverpool, where the John Moores Prize is held, demanding a deeper reckoning with this as an activist painting, within the context of a longstanding painting prize. The theories and arguments discussed here are also now increasingly relevant, given the recent far-right rioting that took place in the wake of tragic murders in Southport; how we articulate our solidarities and organise in response to social injustices are vital discussions to have within and without the arts.
Lauren Velvick
Nicholas Baldion’s painting ‘Social Murder: Grenfell in Three Parts’ was exhibited at the John Moores Painting Prize exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, 16 September 2023—25 February 2024. The painting is unambiguous about its pictorial subject. It holds a faithful representation of events that happened before, during and after the Grenfell disaster within a triple-panelled painting. It is a painting which is explicitly activist and seeks both justice for the victims and relatives of those that died, and change in corrupt political and economic systems. The painting’s left and right panels can be folded to close the painting, which in doing so reveals a painted heart where visitors are invited to leave comments. What follows is an interview with the artist on this particular work, conducted by Andy Jackson, drawing on texts that he has been researching as part of his PhD, particularly Suhail Malik’s On the Necessity of Art’s Exit from Contemporary Art (2019).
Andy Jackson: I want to ask you about if and how painting can affect the world outside of itself. In my research I have been interested in Malik’s On the Necessity of Art’s Exit from Contemporary Art, where he claims that because contemporary art is ambiguous in its approach to subject, it cannot make direct claims on ‘real’ issues. Whereas, quite a few of the paintings in the John Moores make claims on subjective issues outside themselves – e.g. gentrification and social cleansing; women’s unpaid labour. Could you give your thoughts on this idea?
Nicholas Baldion: I think painting can comment on issues outside of itself. I’m thinking of Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ as an example that motivated the public to support the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, used as a tool for propaganda. It was used as a recruiting tool and it was quite effective in that. Another really great example, which perhaps wasn’t the case in its own time, would be Goya’s paintings that he did in his own house (his black period) where he didn’t have any audience in mind. He painted them because he was moved and felt compelled to; they were made from the horror, against the brutality of war. And they keep resonating with us, so we still have that connection with this work from history.
AJ: You comment in the John Moores Prize catalogue that ‘there is desire to ban the artist from making overtly political works’. For me, this connects with Suhail’s Exit from Contemporary Art, in that a lot of contemporary art doesn’t threaten the capitalist, neo-liberal views and processes of galleries and museums. I wondered if you could expand a bit on your comments?
NB: It came from lots of conversations in pubs where people would argue this. It’s also related to when people say painting isn’t ‘relevant’. It comes back to an old idea from art history – the idea of ‘art for art’s sake’ from the romantic period. I think that all ideas come from somewhere and they represent a certain outlook. ‘Art for art’s sake’ is a very bourgeois or middle-class outlook trying to stop a wider commentary. It’s an idea that has an interest in the capitalist system, so I think we have to see all the ideology that comes from it as hostile to socialist and communist ideas, whereby you want to transform society and transform the world. So that’s why I think that ‘art for art’s sake’ represents class prejudice, and that’s why I was against it. There’s a grain of truth in the wider prejudice against 'political art', in that you can make a political work and it can miss the mark and it’s a lot easier to alienate people if they have a different viewpoint. That’s a question of being able to have the political message inherent in the subject and come out implicitly in it, as opposed to being cack-handed with it. That’s more a question of how you manage to approach your subject than it being inherently impossible.
AJ: I am interested to read in previous writing on your work that Michael Kirkbride, known for his figurative paintings, was a mentor. I can see an aesthetic connection between the way Kirkbride composes multiple people in architectural and interior spaces and your work. Also, when I look at the detailed images of your painting I think of murals such as the Cable Street Mural and Diego Rivera’s Mexican murals. Are there any other artists you were looking at, at the time?
NB: Yes, I mean [‘Social Murder’] was almost like a medieval triptych and I was consciously thinking of Hieronymus Bosch and paintings like ‘The Haywain’ because it dealt with a similar subject. In centre you have a hay wagon, which at the time was a symbol of material wealth, and then you’ve got everyone running after it, trampling and killing each other as they’re running into hell on the right hand side. So I was looking at medieval art at the time. Also because it’s a great way to be able to tell a narrative story with lots of scenes and elements in it.