Synopsis
Co-founder of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Herbert Read (1893-1968) was an influential art critic, poet and committed anarchist. In his 1943 essay, To Hell with Culture, Read laid out his ideas for a civilisation based on cooperation in which culture would no longer be a commodity, separated from society, but an integral part of everyday life. In this film, director Huw Wahl engages in conversations with artists, poets, curators, historians and Herbert Read’s own children, to ask how we can apply Read’s ideas and approaches to the commodification of culture in our contemporary society.
A word from Tënk
A poet-knight upon his grave
A Steinbeck
Words
Archives
Then begins the staging of an interview
About words embodying a struggle
A resistance
Against the commodification of culture
Writings that, even today, propose a utopia
One of a society built on principles of cooperation
Where art is an integral part of this movement
In retrospect
A story
Of a man whose studies were interrupted
By the First World War
A war
That led him to question the values placed
On discipline and success
Then, brave people
Who each in turn recount
How these writings
Touched them, mobilized them
And how they have retained their relevance
As an epigraph
The poet-knight whispers to us
And so remains
An alert world
In a country that is no longer an island
Good night
Matthew Wolkow
Filmmaker and curious by profession
