Creation from destruction: why postwar British art has never been more relevant

Tumult, anxiety and an openness to reconstructing society are at the heart of a new show, featuring works by Frank Auerbach, Gillian Ayres and Frank BowlingThere is no more appropriate venue in which to stage a survey of post-second world war art in Britain than the Barbican in London. Like much of the painting, sculpture and photography on display, the arts centre itself emerged out of the devastation of the second world war. Literally built on a City of London bomb site, it was also an ambitio