The Face Magazine: Culture Shift
London’s museums and galleries are enjoying a nostalgic love affair with the subcultures of 1980s Britain this year.
On right now are Tate Britain’s The 80s: Photographing Britain documenting the huge social upheaval of the era, and the Fashion and Textile Museum’s Outlaws delving into the fashions of the New Romantics. Next up is Tate Modern’s Leigh Bowery exhibition, highlighting one of the decade’s most significant cultural figures, followed by the Design Museum’s autumn exhibition on the era’s countercultural headquarters, the Blitz Club. And then there’s the National Portrait Gallery’s offering, The Face Magazine: Culture Shift.
Is five overlapping shows about Thatcher’s Britain too many? Not judging by the number of people that my dad would refer to as ‘older funsters’ poring over magazine spreads on the exhibition’s opening day. For Brits of a certain age, The Face was the pop culture bible of their youth. Its pages were a chaotic, colourful blend of music, fashion, nightlife, and subcultural anthropology, combining the grit, tone, and subject matter of the era’s music publications with the creative flair, quality, and splashy colour photography of the big fashion magazines.
All of this is expounded in effusive hyperboles on the wall text at the beginning of the exhibition, a co-curation between the Portrait Gallery and former employees of the magazine. Setting the scene at the entrance is a pleasingly nostalgic video montage of scenes from 80s Britain. Thatcher...
