Browse by author
Lookup NU author(s): Richard Grayson
Full text is not currently available for this publication.
Nothing Can Stop Us Now features the song Stalin wasn’t Stallin’ covered by Robert Wyatt on his 1982 album Nothing Can Stop Us Now, a record that has become an exemplar of a strand politically engaged independent music which now seems to represent a model of engaged practice that is increasingly distant. The song has been arranged by composer Leo Chadburn and is performed by Chadburn, Bishi, Laura Moody, Tom Herbert, and Sophie Ramsay. Stalin wasn't Stallin’ was written by Willie Johnson, originally recorded by thegospel a cappella group The Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet in 1943 to celebrate Stalin’s stand against Adolf Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union. Nothing Can Stop Us Now talks of ghosts of solidarity and aspirations of agency that still underpin ideas and mythologies of contemporary art. It generates a virtual gathering that both articulates and layers occluded models of political understandings of the world. Choral expressions of a song from a past political model of the world contrast against the buildings and developments that constitute the socio-cultural infrastructure of London, global capital and the international rich. A song of collective political identification and associated utopian desires collides with the contemporary idea of the flash mob, seeking to explore ways that opposition to dominant beliefs have and continue to be expressed – through gatherings and group action – but are now mediated and expressed through electronic and digital media. Reviewed: Martin Herbert Art Monthly August 2014 Richard Grayson: imageobjecttext.com/2014/06/15/the-power-of-song/ Something You Should See: http://www.theculturalexpose.co.uk/arts-culture/something-you-should-see-richard-grayson-nothing-can-stop-us-now/
Artist(s): Grayson R
Publication type: Artefact
Publication status: Published
Year: 2014
Venue: Dilston Grove/Matt's Gallery
Location: London, UK
Type of Work: Multi-screen Video and Audio Installation
