There is something rather soulless about a lot of mainstream 1980s electronic music - a soundtrack to get your head kicked in to, to get brainwashed to, to mindlessly accomplish meaningless tasks to...
The more I look at it, the more I agree with what Adrian Searle said about the Keywords hang looking like the Nazi Degenerate Art exhibition... I mean ... the writing on the wall, the paintings jostling for space on the makeshift wall...
Of course this is an unhappy accident. The theoretical framework... well I'm ambivalent about that to say the least. For a start, a non-English speaking visitor would completely miss it... (just another gripe about monolingual interpretation...)
And the 1980s is not my decade (though I must say I find the artistic output of that decade considerably less rebarbative than its other cultural produce). However the art is interesting - especially Donald Rodney, Lubaina Himid, and Derek Jarman...
If an SS officer was to jump into a time machine (designed by Wernher von Braun perhaps) he would be able to incorporate it into his twisted worldview with little difficulty. For a start, he would consider all the art on show to be degenerate. Mind you, that was the word they used to describe all works of art which did not adhere to the pseudo-classical, nauseating Fuhrer-cult template. The words "violence" and "folk" would be especially pleasing to him, on the wall on the left as he enters. Folk... with its Germanic roots and dark import (when seen through his ideologically-distorted eyes)
Here is the review for reference: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/feb/28/keywords-tate-liverpool-exhibition-williams
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