Viz art goes on show at Tate Britain gallery

Jun 2 2010 by Laura Caroe, The Journal

ART lovers may be in for a shock as rude artwork by the founders of cheeky comic Viz goes on show at one of the United Kingdom’s leading galleries.

Visitors to Tate Britain’s next show may be surprised or, possibly, even offended by Rude Britannia.

Put together by some of the country’s best-known cartoonists and comedy writers, the exhibition explores British comic art from the 1600s to the present day.

Brothers Chris and Simon Donald first published Viz 31 years ago from their parents’ home in Jesmond, Newcastle, and it has amused and outraged readers ever since.

Now bosses of the comic will be adding their own work to the exhibition alongside Harry Hill’s Alice in Wonderland illustrations, Donald McGill’s smutty seaside postcards and Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell.

Simon Thorpe of Viz said: “What we did was make a big comic and blew it up very, very large. We thought they might think it was a little coarse as we are not particularly cultured people, so we drag everything down to our own level and make jokes about the lavatory. In the end, it was just our usual thing that we sent in and so far we haven’t had any complaints or requests to take bits out.