Manchester Gallery of Woke

Art galleries are second only to churches in terms of the interest they provide me. There, one may escape the drab and dreary fallen world we inhabit, and see our race’s creativity, beauty, aspiration and grandeur. Yet the curators and staff of Manchester Art Gallery are currently indulging their left-of-centre, middle-class preoccupations with patriarchy, migration and ‘climate justice’. Among the eighteenth-century pictures of European capitals, staff have helpfully erected a series blackboards saying how much they regret such pictures only representing the views of ‘privileged men’. They openly regret the absence of artworks detailing the ‘influence on British culture by working class people or from outside Europe’. However, the good news is that they are going to replace pictures connected to ‘the grand tour’ with the theme of migration, instead. Great. Another board explains that the Manchester Art Gallery Climate Justice Group (made up of ‘gallery staff, artists and activists’) are ‘rethinking’ the institution. I’m sure, when they are done, it will be treat to visit.

Why can’t they just stick to displaying works of art? Why the need to leave around these blackboards assuring everyone of how ethically up-to-date they are? Here we go again- well educated types indulging their personal opinions and demonstrating their loyalty to the prevailing morality. The fact that they sell in their shops expensive items (mugs at £35), distasteful t-shirts (‘C*ck & Arse’) and a range of less-than-cheap jewellery makes it clear they are not that bothered by inequality and decency.  

In terms of its politics, Manchester is a left-leaning city. Culturally, it is liberal, and I would expect its university-educated gallery staff to reflect this. Yet there are now few places where one can get away from the woke-ism of the cultural elites; even galleries are not safe. Even churches have succumbed. This godless ideology infects all areas of life; like a leaking urinary catheter, it soaks, saturates and stains whatever it touches.