Art under Attack

The Worshipful Company of Mercers has agreed to lend this Statue of the Dead Christ to Tate Britain to form the centrepiece of its exhibition Art under Attack: Histories of British Iconoclasm (CLICK). The statue was unearthed in 1954 in the Mercers’ Chapel, where it had been buried to escape destruction by Protestant religious reformers in the 16th century, the no-popery-here brigade. Flitting through attacks on paintings by those nasty suffragettes, the exhibition moves to modern rubbish which has been attacked because it is in itself an attack on art! This all might be of historic interest, but aesthetically it looks a dead loss. The show opens on 2 October. Prices? £13.50 for adults, £11.30 for silver surfers.