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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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 

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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//

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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

//Richard Boch, 4am, Mudd basement, 1980. Photo: Lynette Bean Kral//

//Fab 5 Freddy Brathwaite, The Times Square Show, 1980. Photo: Bobby Grossman//

Tonight’s DJ appearance at Manhattan’s’ Soho Grand by the city’s clubland legend Richard Boch – who will be joined on the decks by none less than Fab 5 Freddy and Club 57’s Dany Johnson – affords an opportunity to champion one of my favourite books of the year.

//Judy Nylon and transient tattoos, 1979. Photo: Lisa Genet//

//Cookie Mueller, 1979. Photo: Bobby Grossman//

Boch’s The Mudd Club is a visual and literary orgy of delight, packed full of striking images and tales of glory and excess from the late 70s/early 80s nightclub where he was the kingpin doorman and communed on many levels with the good, the bad, the deviant and the simply deranged of popular culture.

//Clockwise from top left: Vicki Pedersen’s membership card; staff member Debi Mazar by Rhonda Paster Corte; ID card flipside; Cookie Mueller, 1979 by Billy Sullivan; Lisa Rosen 1980 by Maripol; Richard Sohl + Richard Boch in Montauk by Ron Beck; Kate Simon’s ID card 1980//

//Clockwise from top left: Vicki Pedersen/Joan Crawford Mother’s Day Event 1979 by Marcia Resnick; Nan Goldin Night School at Mudd 1979 by Billy Sullivan; Pat Ivers and Emily Armstrong 1980 by Robin Schanzenbach; Hal Ludacer 1979 by Eileen Polk; Eric Mitchell and Amos Poe 1979 by Marcia Resnick; Anya Phillips and James Chance, Mudd dance floor 1979 by Chris Stein//

You want to know how David Bowie corralled Joey Arias and Klaus Nomi to back him on Saturday Night Live? Read it here, along with hundred of other yarns to make your hair stand on end.

//Poison Ivy Rorschach post performance. Photo: Alan Kleinberg//

//Damita with cowgirl tattoo, 1980. Photo: Ebet Roberts//

Gossipy and jaw-dropping with a tone which is by turns sardonic and dewy-eyed for times long gone, The Mudd Club is a must-have.

The Mudd Club is published by Feral House; copies available here.

Festivities at the Soho Grand’s Club Room, 310 W Broadway, New York, NY 10013, kick off at 9pm tonight. No cover. Details here.

Tags: Cookie Mueller, David Bowie, Debi Mazar, Ebet Roberts, Fab 5 Freddy Brathwaite, Feral House, Joey Arias, Judy Nylon, Kate Simon, Klaus Nomi, Maripol, Poison Ivy Rorschach, Rhonda Paster Corte, Richard Boch, Richard Sohl, Saturday Night Live, The Mudd Club, Vicki Pedersen

//Kieran Yates talks through British Values with visitors to PRINT! on its final day this week. Photo: Somerset House Trust//

PRINT! Tearing It Up – the exhibition I co-curated at London’s Somerset House this summer – ended with a bang with a talk by journalist Kieran Yates about her magazine British Values (one of my highlights of the show).

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: artsbites.com, Claire Catterall, Kieran Yates, Somerset House Trust, Sophie Greenstreet, Theresa May, Vice

//The first vitrine contains original copies of Blast 2 (1915), Crash! 1 (1997) and gal-dem 2 (2017). Photo: @hellenelleliang//

//Enjoying browsing the magazines on the PRINT! newsstand. Photo: @jasonthien//

//Contributor Alpa Depani talking about her zine Romp with members of the New Architecture Writers group. Photo: @paul_g0rm4n//

PRINT! Tearing It Up, the exhibition about the resurgence and history of independent progressive British magazines, has entered its final week at central London’s Somerset House.
Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Alpa Depani, Black Dwarf, Black Echoes, Blitz, Claire Catterall, Crash!, Cyclops, Freakbeat, Gal-dem, i-D, Iain R. Webb, John May, Liv Siddall, Oz, P.i.X, Rhona Ezuma, Romp, Rough Trade, Sandie Shaw, Somerset House, Terry Jones, THIIIRD, Trench

//Outtakes of the eight women featured in London Belles, published in the December 7 1973 issue of West One magazine. Photography © John Bishop. No reproduction without permission//

Although high fashion may be a thing of the past, what has replaced it is individuality and freedom to express. Women like these now make up their own minds about what they are and what they wear. Perhaps the rest of us should get the message and start being living fashion.
West One, December 7, 1973

I’m really honoured that veteran fashion photographer John Bishop has granted me this exclusive to show previously unpublished outtakes from the landmark London Belles feature he shot for the 1970s British magazine West One.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: AS Neill, Jane Merer, Janet Street-Porter, John Bishop, Jose Fonseca, Launita, Louise Doktor, Models 1, Pru Walters, Shelley Martin, Summerhill, Suzi Quatro, Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die, Vivienne Westwood, West One