Gee Vaucher: Beyond punk, feminism and the avant-garde

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The label also put out three editions of Bullshit Detector, compilations of demos and rough recordings that had been sent to the band which they felt represented the DIY punk ethic. The exhibition explores the creative impact of punk and post-punk with collage, photography and film from artists and musicians like Marianne Elliott-Said (A.K.A Poly Styrene), The Neo Naturists, and Gina Birch. The consideration of sex in the practice of artists is also explored, from Cosey Fanni Tutti’s performance work to Jill Westwood’s Potent Female, 1983. Protest led by women is a core theme throughout the show. Banners, posters, and journals from the Greenham Common and Section 28 protests, and anti-racism and AIDS campaigns are accompanied by documentary photography from Format Photography Agency, Mumtaz Karimjee, Bhajan Hunjan and Caroline Coon, affirming women’s central role in this activism. A major sculpture by Margaret Harrison which references the fences of Greenham Common is installed alongside protest banners by Thalia Campbell. No number Crass - "Sheep Farming In the Falklands" 7" (Initially released as flexi, later as 121984/3) There’s no isms,” confirms Vaucher, a sharp, warm presence in simple, dark clothing, as we settle into one of Dial House’s many cosy, serene corners. “‘Anarchists’ wasn’t a title we gave ourselves. It was something that was given to us, and we thought we’d run with it. The anarchism I took on was to uncover myself. By looking at certain areas, you do create chaos inside yourself, because you’re taking away what you think is your solid ground.” Your work is synonymous with what could broadly be called counterculture. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, counterculture is now as accessible and easy to engage in as the mainstream. Does that excite you?

Marx’s refusal to equate labour inside and outside the home might stand as a theme. You see it in the desperate daily lives at a London toy factory recorded in an installation by Mary Kelly, Margaret Harrison and Kay Hunt, with women rising at five to make breakfast for their husbands and children, before cleaning the house then going to work, only to return to childcare and dinner. You see it in Maureen Scott’s strong painting Mother and Child at Breaking Point, where the infant howls while the woman, rigid, exhausted, tries to keep going.

As for comics, I have to admit I’m not a great fan, though I have enjoyed a couple of graphic novels. An essential book, giving due attention to one of the most influential artists of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Gee Vaucher's artwork has been much copied but never bettered. Her influence is here captured expertly by Rebecca Binns's well-researched critical analysis.'

Her grandfather – but not her parents – was artistic but it's easy to get the impression that she was self-taught from an early age. "Every child draws, don't they?" says Vaucher about her first forays into art as the youngest of her family with three older brothers. "My most lasting memory is having made a lot of Christmas cards. I must have been six or seven. I remember sitting at the table working away. And my brother did a wobbler and tore them all up. Such cruelty – it never left me. It was the first demonstration of something that was really cruel, especially as he was child himself. Ex-Crass members Penny Rimbaud and Gee Vaucher continue to put out their creative works (for example, material by Last Amendment, and Vaucher's book Animal Rites) through Exitstencil, often in collaboration with other publishers such as the jazz label Babel Label and AK Press. [2] Corpus Christi [ edit ] She left New York after another piece was rejected, opting to join Crass full-time as a visual artist. These days, Vaucher says, her work is less overtly satirical: “But to me, art is politics, with a small ‘p’. It’s still just as political, but it’s much more domestic. I’m always very interested in the psychology of people.” I think about a single image the same way as I did then. If I think an image is not telling the whole truth, hiding the bits that count or lends itself to be taken in another direction or further along in the same direction, I use it.He made all our toys. He'd find bits of wood, bring them home and put two together but with a step, says Vaucher starting to smile at the recollection, "then we'd hobble around on them like stilts!" A chef then boiler cleaner by trade, Vaucher's father apparently invented an early version of what became to be known as streak racing for kids' toy cars: "Once he came home with all these long piece of ply," recalls Vaucher. "Really long. You could put them from one wall over to the next. He said, 'go and get all your toys!' And we'd race them along while mum would be sitting underneath it all knitting. At college Vaucher threw herself into her work, spending an enormous amount of time in the life drawing room. Left to her own devices, her initiative and self-motivation came into its own. "They respected what you were doing and let you get on with it. From the start I didn't want any help. I hate people telling me anything – in the sense that if I don't ask. If I needed help I'd ask for it; I need to make my own mistakes, I really do. And I did. I loved drawing. I spent all my time in the life room. Nowadays everyone uses computers." Everything is to do with art. My work has always been about the psychology of action, or being – the way people go about things, or the way they solve problems – or the way they add to them because of the way they've tried to solve a problem.

Her own journal International Anthem ran from 1977 to 1984 and subverted ideas of aspiration and traditional gender roles, using images from popular magazines such as Good Housekeeping and Woman’s Own and highlighting that most aspiration was in fact synonymous with capitalism and consumerism. Marketing strategies disguised as values. You could say that about Picasso," says Vaucher diplomatically. "He spent the second half of his life as a millionaire many times over. Could he still make art when he had money? I think he did, yes. But then he had that integrity to start with – and he did everything [himself]. He didn't have other people doing his art. I have problem with that – Hirst has a team of people doing his art." Politics runs through theentire show and underpins the different groupings,” explains Kittler. “Theexhibition takes her well-known political Crass work of the 1980s as thestarting point and introduces visitors to her lesser-known work that was being made before and after, so [the show]is anchored on this timeline.” Cover for International Anthem No.2 – Domestic Violence, 1979, collage, 340 x 270 mmGower Boy". Fourteenth Raindance Film Festival. Raindance. 1 October 2006. Archived from the original on 14 November 2006. {{ cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown ( link)

Finally, when the latest edition of The Crassical Collection is spread out before you, how does it compare with the work you are doing today? It goes deep into the most ingenious use of photocopy, collage, intervention and performance, into art on billboards and library walls, via flyers and zines, as well as canvas and sculpture. Graffiti is such an ancient way of the people voicing an opinion whether it’s “I love Joe” or “Boris [Johnson] is a wanker”. There have been some incredible words and images shared and long may it continue. The Best Before 1984 collection contains one of your most famous images, a gouache collage depicting The Queen, Pope John Paul II, the Justice statue and Margaret Thatcher dressed in punk attire and lounging against a wall. It’s Banksy before Banksy, but how was it received at the time?

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Women in Revolt! is supported by the Women in Revolt! Exhibition Supporters Circle, Tate International Council, Tate Patrons and Tate Members.