Peter Kennard, Haywain with Cruise Missiles, 1980, chromolithograph on paper and photographs on paper, Tate, purchased from the artist 2007 [Peter Kennard]

IN Images for the End of the Century: Photomontage Equations, Peter Kennard wrote of his work.

“Our world contains terrible equations. One billion dollars, the cost of 20 modern military planes, equals what it would cost to control the illness killing 11 million children annually in the developing world. The single click of a camera shutter cannot equate one with the other. But in a photomontage two clicks can be brought together to create a third meaning…

“My photomontages attempt to rip apart the smooth, apparently seamless surface of official deceit to expose the conflict underneath… It is increasingly necessary for artists to ring visual alarm bells.”

That was to coincide with his show 34 years ago at the Imperial War Museum.

Grind the years forward to his latest exhibition, Archive of Dissent,* in Whitechapel, and the focus is only slightly changed. It’s still, with an examination of half-a-century of his work, about the ripping apart of “the imagery that we are bombarded with daily”.

And Kennard adds: “Profit masks poverty, racism, war, climate catastrophe and on and on… My aim is to unmask the connection.”

Peter Kennard, Union Mask, 2007, screen print in colours with varnish on 300gsm Somerset Satin white paper, courtesy the artist

And the work continues. Born in 1949 he is described as having a unique practice, an activist, and the UK’s first – and only – professor of political art (Royal College of Art, now emeritus).

The exhibition is designed to reference the earlier use of the galleries in which it is presented, formerly the Whitechapel Library (1892-2005). So in addition to photomontages it’s offered as a developing archive with not only newspapers, posters, and books but also installations, among them a 2024 work titled People’s University of the East End, as the old library was known.

Given the time span, the enduring, poignant relevance of many pieces is stark.

For students of labour or Labour history, for example, there’s a poster published by the party in its Walworth Road days, 1982, proclaiming NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS, with a characteristic anti-war, anti-missile, image.

A poster for the print unions of the day – SOGAT, NGA, AUEW, and NUJ – is headed The Gravedigger, and has Rupert Murdoch at the time of his attacks on the industry. Gravestones at “his” feet read: “R.I.P. 5500 SACKED WORKERS” and “R.I.P. THE SUN/NEWS OF THE WORLD/THE TIMES/THE SUNDAY TIMES”.

There’s work for Amnesty, the Greater London Council, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and more.

Many familiar images can be seen. There’s Kennard’s Protest and Survive take on the government’s so-called civil defence campaign “Protect and Survive” of the late 1970s and, from Target London, his cruise missiles/ The Hay Wain piece, and his 1980 Broken Missile.

So too The Birmingham Six, Chile Slaughterhouse, Rubber Bullet, Northern Ireland and Support the Miners.

And, of course, there are Margaret Thatcher, Henry Kissinger, Donald Trump et al.

• Peter Kennard: Archive of Dissent is a free-entry exhibition at Whitechapel Gallery, E1 7QX until January 19 2025.
www.whitechapelgallery.org