Richard Hell + Young Kim present the Performa 15 Malcolm McLaren Award to Edgar Arceneaux
//Edgar Arceneaux making his acceptance speech with the Malcolm McLaren Award. Photo: @performanyc’s Instagram feed//
On Sunday night the performance art biennial Performa 15 culminated with a celebration of the 40th anniversary of punk.
As part of the event at New York’s Hôtel Americano, the Malcolm McLaren Award – designed by Marc Newson with $10,000 prize money – was presented to Edgar Arceneaux by Young Kim of the McLaren Estate and writer/musician Richard Hell.
Arceneaux won for his experimental play, “Until, Until, Until . . .,” inspired by the controversial appearance by African-American actor Ben Vereen in black-face at Ronald Reagan’s 1981 inaugural celebration.
//Hell on stage on Sunday night at New York’s Hôtel Americano. Photo: @performanyc’s Instagram feed//
Kim introduced Hell with McLaren’s memorable description of his first encounter with the poet and performer in the mid-70s from Gillian McCain and Legs McNeill’s oral history of punk Please Kill Me:
Here was a guy all deconstructed, torn down, looking like he’d just crawled out of a drain hole, looking like he was covered in slime, looking like he hadn’t slept in years, looking like he hadn’t washed in years, and looking like no one gave a fuck about him.
And looking like he didn’t really give a fuck about you! He was this wonderful, bored, drained, scarred, dirty guy with a torn t-shirt… this look, this image of this guy, this spiky hair, everything about it – there was no question that I’d take it back to London. By being inspired by it, I was going to imitate it and transform it into something more English.
To much laughter, Hell took to the stage and announced: “Well here’s what’s left of me!” before joining Kim in presenting Arceneaux with the award.
//Both sides of the Malcolm McLaren Award//
Visit the Performa15 site here.