Red

Red grabs your attention. Today we associate red with danger, sex, anger and more, yet the colour was once so significant that things which have a profound impact upon our lives were widely called red, even though they are often not red at all.

Spike Bucklow takes us from a 34,000-year-old shaman burial dress to the iPhone screen, exploring the myriad of purposes we have put red to as well as the materials from which it comes. The pursuit of the colour drove medieval alchemy and modern chemistry alike, and red has been found in insects, tree resins, tar, earths and excitable gases. It is associated with earth, blood and fire, with the holy, with national flags and powerful ideologies.

Red is a material and cultural history that makes one see this colour afresh, a crucial part of the human visual world.