Small is beautiful when it comes to the inventive mini-edition of The Gentlewoman, a greatest hits package celebrating the exemplary British magazine’s “10 years of fabulousness”.
During that time (after all print had been roundly declared as “dead” in 2010), editor Penny Martin and her team have consistently confounded expectations around independent print publishing and the traditional editorial stances of periodicals aimed at female readers.
//Flyer for Ludus performance at Cabaret Futura, London, 1981//
//One of two hand-painted t-shirts given to the author, depicting him and Linder’s sister Nettie in a lover’s embrace in 1983. No reproduction without permission//
On the eve of the opening of Linderism, a new exhibition by the great contemporary artist Linder, I’m publishing a guest post by a follower of this blog who, like many, was introduced to her work via the sleeve artwork for Buzzcocks’ 1977 single Orgasm Addict.
“To me, it was punk for the eyes rather than the ears,” writes the contributor, who has asked for anonymity and was a 17-year-old school-leaver living in south London at the time.
He went on to forge a connection with Linder by following her post-punk group Ludus and encountered many in her circle, including the pre-Smiths Steven Morrissey.
Here he tells his story and shows a selection of the artworks Linder gave him:
The message I received from the Orgasm Addict sleeve was: “Think A.N.Other way. See it as it is”. A few months later I purchased The Secret Public, Linder’s print collaboration with Jon Savage. Again I’d never seen anything like it, hardcore pornographic imagery redirected into a cocktail of consumerist lust.
//Back page of The Secret Public, Linder + Jon Savage, 1978//
In October 1974 Malcolm McLaren conjured an unusual group name for four young musicians who congregated at his shop at 430 King’s Road.
//The group name as it appeared on the ‘right’ side of the You’re Gonna Wake Up t-shirt//
At the time the transition from the premises’ previous incarnation as Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die to Sex was nearing completion; in fact the teenagers Paul Cook, Steve Jones, Glen Matlock (who was also a sales assistant on Saturdays) and Wally Nightingale assisted McLaren in applying the finishing touch with the erection of the pink vinyl shop sign constructed at his direction by carpenter Vic Mead.
//The premises of Jack English Snr’s lighting shop in Leicester’s Granby Street provide the book’s cover image//
//Will English (right) with Helen Robinson and Steph Raynor in a transport cafe c.1970. Photo by Rose Kendall//
//David Parkinson and his Messerschmitt bubble car, 1974. Photography: Will English//
Perfect Binding, the recently published book by British experimental filmmaker/broadcaster/bookseller William English, is a psychogeographic portrait of a particular strain of cultural activity in a particular place at a particular time: the Midlands city of Leicester from the 1950s to the 70s.
| Paul Gorman is a writer. This is his blog: art, books, conversation, cults, dancing, design, encounters, environments, events, film, galleries, groups, individuals, invitations, magazines, music, opinions, performance, photography, places, press, privacy, spaces, style, thoughts + views. |
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