Jonathan Jones claims that the exhibition Lives Less Ordinary seeks to define the working class as a “single, stable body”, though goes on to acknowledge the ways in which the artists featured question and expand what it might mean to be working class (Lives Less Ordinary review – is this really a fair view of the British working class?, 27 January).
Reflecting the nuanced intersections of class, race, religion, gender, sexuality, and migrant status, the wide-ranging selection of the artists affirms “working classness as something dynamic and plural”, as is clearly stated in one of the exhibition’s wall texts.
Bringing forth expressions of pride and joy, family and community, humour and hope, the show deliberately eschews the all-too-familiar portrayals of “the ways people work and survive” that Mr Jones seems to feel working-class artists owe him.
Perhaps Mr Jones feels justified in evaluating whose experiences are “authentically” working class.
The curator of the Lives Less Ordinary calls Jonathan Jones’s review into question.
