In their 2018 paper Preference for realistic art predicts support for Brexit sociologists Noah Carl, Lindsay Richard and Anthony Heath presented evidence that research participants who voted Leave in the 2016 Brexit referendum were 15 – 20% more likely to exhibit a preference for ‘realistic’ painting. On the face of things this makes perfect sense; many Brexit voters are ‘small-c’ conservatives, committed to ‘traditional’ conservative values and therefore, one would assume, ‘traditional’ painting. Historically or traditionally, what has been celebrated as ‘Art’ until the 20th century was broadly realistic, figurative or representational art. The development of Western culture has historically been ...

Rianna Jade Parker reads “Letter from London: What is the Status of Black Artists in England Today?” published in ARTnews (June 2020), and engages Sky Goodden on issues of artworld access, stature, masculinity, precariousness, deference to sovereignty, and duty to one another, for Black British artists working in the UK. From Steve McQueen’s accepting the Knighthood to a broader conversation around meritocracy and the sudden rush of Black British art (after decades of deletion), Parker discusses her feeling of responsibility to her peers through criticism, and the long unmarked history that she’s beginning to write. “Most other press speaks about Black British art right ...