//Front cover (No Pussyfooting), Fripp & Eno, EG/Island, 1973.//

The final piece in Tate Modern’s current Yayoi Kusama show – her dramatic Infinity Mirror Room – brought to my vinyl-fixated mind one of the greatest record sleeves of all time: the gatefold for (No Pussyfooting), the album released in 1973 by Brian Eno and Robert Fripp.

All of a piece with the music it packages – prismatic, playful, calm, cerebral, oblique – the four-part composition was photographed and designed at Eno’s behest by photographer/filmmaker Willie Christie.

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Tags: "Heroes", Albright Knox, Brian Eno, David Bowie, Grace Coddington, Infinity Mirror Room, Lucas Samaras, Maida Vale, Music Week, Robert Fripp, The Mirrored Room, Vogue, Willie Christie, Yayoi Kusama

With Cardin, Paris, January 2012. Photography: Matthew Frost.

Last month I spent a fascinating couple of hours in the company of one of the grand enigmas of the age, Pierre Cardin.

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Tags: Futurism, Matthew Frost, Modernism, Pierre Cardin, Vice

I was in the audience at the Beacon Theatre NYC for the 1999 VH1 Divas, where this Whitney Houston performance was recorded.

Her presence during this particular song is electrifying; she exudes vulnerability, a tortured female star (the wrong side of 35 according to the precepts of the global music industry) visibly dealing with the downside of unimaginable fame + fortune.

When Houston wasn’t onstage, she and Bobby Brown were sat a few rows ahead.

They were looped, out there. Brown was wearing what looked like an original South Beach Leather loose-stitched suit (a la Al Green on the sleeve of his Greatest Hits) complete with Po’Boy cap.

When Houston was onstage, he tore it up in the audience, cheering and hollering his support.

I love the skittering It’s Not Right But It’s OK. She nailed it that night.

Tags: 1999, beacon Theatre, Bobby Brown, South Beach Leather, VH1, VH1 Divas, Whitney Houston

Sculptor John Frankland is a near-contemporary of Damien Hirst’s; both studied at Goldsmith’s in the 80s and their work has been included in the same group shows and prominent collections.

I asked John for his take on the grand Gagogo gesture of The Complete Spot Paintings, the exhibition which has “taken over the planet” (according to some press reports) by showing 1500 examples of one of the artist’s signature works across the 11 Gagosian galleries.

John visited the London shows, in Britannia Street and Davies Street.

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Tags: Alan Charlton, Britannia Street, Damien Hirst, Davies Street, Flash Art, Gagosian, Giancarlo Politi, John Armleder, John Frankland, The Complete Spot Paintings, YBA

Cover design based on artwork from: (front) C.Comics No. 2, 1965; (back) The Friendly Way, 1972.

The new BeatBooks catalogue is preoccupied with a print netherworld encompassing one-offs, limited editions and short-runs published by  concrete poets, beats and other outsiders.

There are also juicy examples of smack-sensationalising pulp fiction and – in one section alone – 36 items relating to The Naked Lunch, including  Chicago Review excerpts from 1958 and William Burroughs’ first US LP release.
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Tags: Andrew Sclanders, BeatBooks, Bob Cobbing, Brion Gysin, Chicago Review, Dom Sylvester Houédard, Henri Chopin, Ian Finlay Hamilton, Joe Brainard, Junkie, Orgy Boys, Ted Berrigan, The Naked Lunch, William Lee

The new issue of The Word magazine includes a photo-spread on the exhibition Lloyd Johnson: The Modern Outfitter.

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Tags: Chelsea Space, Danny Baker, Don Grant, John Lydon, Kenny macDonald, Kensington & Chelsea Today, Kosmo Vinyl, Marx, Worlds End, Wreckless Eric