#stonard

Wallinger’s early works often focussed on British traditions and as a society what we held dear to us,however in the 1990′s he made a transition, this is what Stonard was references when writing a biography for Wallinger. However he wasn't permanently focused on spirituality as we see in his work State Britain, where he returns to cultural art. State Britain is a protest in itself, highlighting what an artist can get away with but a protester couldn’t. In 2005 the British Labor government passed a law stating that no protest could take place within a kilometre of parliament. As a result Brian Haw was forcibly removed and denied the right to protest in parliament square where he had been staging a protest for over five years. The protest was about economic sanctions imposed against Iraq, the incident caught the attention of Wallinger who had taken photographs of the protest before the police had downsized it. It was upon these photographs that State Britain was built. A ramshackle structure was created made up of placards and sheets of tarpaulin within the Tate Britain, which sits directly on the border of the new government restriction, Wallinger erected the structure deliberately making sure that it crossed the line and was partially within a kilometre of parliament. Directly in breach of the Governments law, Wallinger wanted to show that under the guise of art things are acceptable and that society shouldn't have this double standard. Wallinger’s work depends entirely on location to reach its full potential,