I’m extremely grateful to artist/designer/photographer Ash Hudson for sending precious photographs and design sketches from the archive of his late mother Ola Hudson, the super-talented fashion designer and costumier best known for providing David Bowie with the formal yet other-worldly collection of garments he wore in Nicolas Roeg’s 1976 film The Man Who Fell To Earth and as The Thin White Duke on the subsequent Isolar world tour.

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Tags: Ash Hudson, Bob Gruen, Carly Simon, Dean Stockwell, Dewar's, Diamond Dogs, Iggy Pop, Isolar, John Lennon, Nicolas Roeg, Ola Hudson, Skitzo, Slash, The Man Who Fell To Earth, The Pointer Sisters

There were more 150 art schools in this country in the mid-1960s. Most of them are now closed or absorbed into other institutions and the buildings repurposed, remodelled or demolished. What did it mean to have an art school in every town and what can we learn by discovering their fate?

Exhibition notes for The Art Schools Of North West England, 2018

I’m playing catch-up, having been distracted by a big project, but wanted to plug this great exhibition which is on at Liverpool’s prestigious gallery Bluecoat until March next year.

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Tags: Bluecoat Gallery, John Beck, Matthew Cornford, Rob Battersby, The Art School & The Culture Shed

Stacia Blake, the artist and performer best known for her association with Hawkwind, has produced a new t-shirt, poster and postcard featuring an amazing design by the legendary Barney Bubbles 

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Tags: Space Ritual, Stacia Blake

Next month British artists David Stephenson and Josh Stapleton’s music project Robert Fraser’s Groovy Arts Club Band releases a limited edition double vinyl album to coincide with the opening of the exhibition of the same name at London gallery Gazelli Art House.

The show, curated by Stephenson and Gazelli’s Mila Askarova, celebrates the life and work of the art dealer Robert Fraser, the “Groovy Bob” of pop culture legend who represented cutting edge artists from the 1960s to the 80s.

Housed in a handsome gatefold sleeve designed by the great British artist Derek Boshier, the limited edition record features tracks dedicated not just to Fraser but also the constellation of artists in his firmament, including Boshier himself (on the track An Englishman in LA), Jean-Michel Basquiat (Samo), Brian Clarke (Dangerous Visions Of Brian Clark), Keith Haring (Keith Haring’s Pop Shop) and Ed Ruscha (I Want To Hang Out With Ed Ruscha).

Robert Fraser’s Groovy Arts Club Band is available from January 10 from Gazelli Art House. Order copies here. 

The exhibition runs from January 11 to February 23, 2019. Details here.

Harriet Vyner’s must-read biography of Fraser is available here.

Tags: Brian Clarke, David Stephenson, Ed Ruscha, Gazelli Art House, Groovy Bob, Harriet Vyner, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Josh Stapleton, Keith Haring, Mila Askarova, Robert Fraser, Robert Fraser's Groovy Arts Club Band

The third edition of Scott King and Matt Worley’s CRASH! has arrived. Entitled Nostalgia For The Jet Age, it is an “exhibition in a box” which coincides with an actual exhibition of the same name currently being held at Scotland’s Timespan.

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Tags: Claire Catterall, Come Taste My Mind, Earl Brutus, Esperanto, Hawkwind, ICA, Margo Leadbetter, Matthew Worley, Neil Armstrong, Nostalgia For The Jet Age, Sadie Young, Scott King, The Good Life, Timespan, Wolfgang Tillmans

//Hawkwind’s Space cut-out-and-keep 21-card “Galactic Tarot” pack arranged in the shape of a hawk in IT 117, November 18 – December 2, 1971. Design: Barney Bubbles//

//The cards arranged in rows of seven as recommended by the instructions//

In November 1971, design legend Barney Bubbles produced a typically audacious promotional item for Hawkwind’s recently released album X In Search Of Space.

//Front page, IT 117//

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Tags: Chilli Willi And The Red Hot Peppers, Cressida, Fontana, Glastonbury Fayre, Hawkwind Log, IT, Kings Of The Robot Rhythm, Oz, Pennie Smith., Red Dirt, Revelation Enterprises, Robert Calvert, Silver Machine, Vertigo, Victor Gordon, X In Search Of Space

When he was growing up in Minneapolis in the 1950s, the painter Duncan Hannah’s father advised him: “You never know what kind of squirrel cage a man goes home to at the end of the day.”

Hannah’s book 20th Century Boy allows the reader full access to the squirrel cage inhabited by this charming man in 1970s New York.

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Tags: 20th Century Boy, Amos Poe, Andy Warhol, Ashenden, Bryan Ferry, Claudine, Colette, David Bowie, Debbie Harry, Duncan Hannah, Gato Barbieri, Harlem, John Cale, Justine, Last Tango In Paris, Lawrence Durrell, Roxy Music, Somerset Maugham, Unmade Bed, Vintage Violence