Is this Scottish anti-Brexit exhibition really ‘art’?

‘Hate is not welcome in Scotland’, apparently, at least according to a public information film released in 2018 by the Scottish government. ‘We believe in acceptance, and it’s time you accept that’ continue the bright-eyed young people featured in the ad. Anyone who believes in this uplifting message might be puzzled if they pop into the City Art Centre in Edinburgh, where a new exhibition by artist Rachel Maclean seems to be very short on acceptance for Brexit and the awful Brits who voted for it.

‘Native Animals’ is a set of paintings and video installations which, according to the blurb are ‘examining the various motivations behind Brexit and its repercussions’. The images depict Leave supporters as grotesque hybrid monsters draped in Union Jack flags and revelling in anti-immigrant sentiments. One particularly hideous creation, a corpulent pock marked pig/orc combination has the slogan ‘Hop off Home’ emblazoned on a sash worn over his Union Jack emblazoned jacket. It’s not exactly subtle.

Rachel Maclean’s ideas about the ‘motivation’ for Brexit are clear from the various tableaux: an attachment to reactionary, jingoistic, queasily nostalgic, and outmoded perceptions of a pastoral fantasy Britain, allied to a bloodthirsty xenophobia. Gullibility seems to be another suggested factor: one image shows a sort of grand Brexit rabble-rouser-in chief entrancing followers into a pagan dance of race hate.

‘Britishness’ for the artist seems to be synonymous with ‘Englishness’, though. One debauched scene, reminiscent of Hieronymus Bosch, shows a pub garden (‘The English Rose’), where Cross of St. George sporting figures carouse drunkenly. Next to the pub is what looks like a peep show, presumably to emphasise their sleaziness. There is also a job centre to remind us of the dire economic consequences of Brexit. In the background the grey ‘immigrant’ figures are shown trudging off to what may be an internment camp. ‘Fake news’ can be seen graffitied on a tree trunk.

As for the ‘repercussions’ of Brexit, depictions of bloodshot rabbits (immigrants) suggest that Britain’s exit from the EU could lead to murderous outcomes, with bloodthirsty Brexiteers hunting down their prey for sport. One image has a ‘Native Animal’ (Brexiteer) holding up a bloodied trophy kill amidst a pile of others. Another shows the evil Brexit ghouls rejoicing over a dinghy littered with the corpses of migrants.

While the seen-it-all-before mash up of shlock horror, surrealism and whimsy reaffirms Paul Valery’s observation that ‘everything changes but the avant-garde’, the student union level political judgements and generalisations are facile and boring. They are also lazy: a moment's research would have informed Maclean that more than a million Scots, including many SNP supporters, voted for Brexit. Scotland’s relatively low turnout in the 2016 poll further undermines the endlessly repeated myth that Scotland (to a man) voted to stay in the EU and had to be dragged out. And it wouldn’t take much longer to seek out the research pointing out that control of immigration was trumped amongst Brexit supporters, by a desire for sovereignty. 

The City Art Centre makes a big deal of inclusivity on its website. Its 'anti-racist pledge' informs us piously that: 'We stand in solidarity with #BlackLivesMatter'. But why can't that toleration extend to voters who opted for a different choice in a binary referendum? 

‘Native Animals’ is likely to provide a booster shot of resentment and division in a country not lacking in either. ‘Hate isn’t welcome in Scotland’? Aye, well, when it comes to the Brexit referendum, it seems that those rules don't apply.