Exhibition of his work ate Tate Modern will take you on a journey through his artwork from 1949 to late works completed before he died, there are 18 rooms each exploring different part of his artistic life, it is quite remarkable how accomplished he was when I looked at his artwork I could not believe that one person can be so versatile.
I will now mention some of the elements of this exhibition that made the strongest impression on me, and as perception of art is very subjective you might not agree and find other parts more interesting.
Hamilton is perhaps best known for his leading role in the birth of pop art.
I found this part of exhibition incredibly mind stimulating but also quite disturbing, photos of Marylin Monroe, the overpowering presence of woman's body used as an object, collages made out of different female faces (Fashion Plate's done in 1960s) are to me like a premonition of what is going on in the now days pop-culture and by that I mean using sexualized images of human body to sell almost anything, spiralling obsession with perfect looks which is boosted by companies creating models out of most desired body parts belonging in fact to several people and setting unrealistic expectations which lead to low self esteem and distorted perception of human relationships, domination of cheap, cheerful and fast in all elements of life, cult of exhibitionism and voyeurism in reality shows.
Fashion Plate by Richard HamiltonHamilton also raises questions about indoctrination and control, especially by all-present TV and CCTV, through his iconic Treatment Room (room 12) an installation showing a sort of sterile and intimidating hospital room with a monitor showing repeating footage of Margaret Thatcher from Conservative Party Election Broadcast in 1983.
Another powerful part of this exhibition is room 13 containing The citizen/The subject/The state and based on stills from a 1980 news report about the IRA 'dirty protest' ( if you want more information about this watch Setve McQueens' movie called "Hunger" there is a review of this movie on my blog http://myencounterswithart.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/review-of-steve-mcqueens-movies-hunger.html ).
On a lighter note in a room 11 we have a segment called Shit & Flowers inspired by some old fashioned postcards from the village of Miers in south-west France showing people 'relieving themselves' after drinking a local laxative, although the subject is rather shall we say smelly, it is refreshing :) and funny to actually see toilet paper in the real life situation, without all the fluffy animals and cute babies constantly used now days in adverts (excrement don't seem to exist in advertising, we have the softest paper but what it is for that is never shown, often there isn't even a toilet in sight).
Go and see this exhibition while you still can (it's opened till 26 of May 2014 ) it will give you a unique chance to see the roots from which our modern culture sprouted and spark some reflection about where it all may lead us and do we really want to go there.
http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/richard-hamilton
