Paul Gorman is…

Derek Boshier’s Reigning Apps And Blogs in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition

Jun 23rd, 2015
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//Reigning Apps And Blogs, acrylic on canvas, 187 x 122 x 3cm, 2011//

Check out, if you have the chance, Derek Boshier’s giant 2011 work Reigning Apps And Blogs in the summer show curated by Michael Craig Martin at London’s Royal Academy of Arts.

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Just as the independent labels and self-published fanzines Paul Gorman chronicles built their own alternative economies outside the mainstream music industry, today's digital subcultures are experimenting with decentralised currencies that move value without banks or borders. Part of that wave has reached the world of sports and casino entertainment, where crypto-friendly wagering has found a particularly enthusiastic audience in Turkey under the name bitcoin bahis —a form of play that lets users stake and cash out with digital coins rather than conventional payment rails. Anyone tempted to try it should treat it strictly as entertainment, stake only money they can afford to lose, and first confirm the platform's licensing as well as the gambling rules in force in their own country.

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Long-awaited monograph Derek Boshier: Rethink/Re-entry to be published by Thames & Hudson in October

Jun 19th, 2015
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//From Thames & Hudson’s July-December 2015 catalogue//

“As an artist Derek Boshier has never lost his sense of wonder at the world” – David Hockney

The publication date of Derek Boshier: Rethink/Re-entry – the monograph of the great British artist I have edited – is confirmed as October 5.

Published by Thames & Hudson with a preface by David Hockney, Rethink/Re-entry contains 300-plus illustrations, from student exercises in the mid-50s to current works including the cover, a new portrait of Hockney and chapter openers especially designed by Boshier for the project.

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A slice of Bohemia in St Leonard’s-on-Sea

Jun 19th, 2015

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Tonight (June 19) witnesses a private view for the inaugural exhibition at Bohemia Club in the south coast town of St Leonard’s-on-Sea.

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Icteric’s influence on the Sex shop t-shirt You’re Gonna Wake Up One Morning And Know What Side Of The Bed You’ve Been Lying On!

Jun 18th, 2015
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//Explanatory text panel which appeared on the inside cover of Icteric No. 2 with 2004 note, from King Mob: A Critical Hidden History//

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//Extract of text on 1974 t-shirt by Bernie Rhodes, Malcolm McLaren and Gerry Goldstein//

A few years ago I attempted a dissection of the intriguing elements of the culture-shock t-shirt You’re Gonna Wake Up One Morning And Know What Side Of The Bed You’ve Been Lying On!, produced by Bernie Rhodes, Malcolm McLaren and Gerry Goldstein for sale in Sex at 430 King’s Road in the autumn of 1974.

In You’re Gonna Wake Up, the declamatory tone, aggressive punctuation, satirical bite and use of basic typographical emphases such as the repeated forward slash and random capitalised text combined to detonate a densely packed cultural device.

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In search of the entirely unexpected: Barney Bubbles among Print magazine’s Unsung Heroes Of Design

Jun 16th, 2015

 

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//From Print’s 75th anniversary issue, illustrations (clockwise from top left): A section of Bubbles’ design for the sleeve of 1979 LP Armed Forces lines up with work by Ruth Ansel, Andrew Loomis, Ladislaw Sutnar, Cipe Pineles and Paul Bacon//

For its 75th anniversary issue, US visual culture publication Print has selected Barney Bubbles as one of six “unsung heroes of design”.

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Barney Bubbles designs go regional at the National Museum Cardiff + Ludlow Fringe Art Trail

Jun 16th, 2015
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//A doozy: This point-of-sale design by Barney Bubbles for Elvis Costello & The Attractions’ 1980 LP Get Happy!! is among rare rock posters on show at Mod Lang in Ludlow. Photo: Paul Bradshaw//

The regions are where it’s at these days, so we are told, and naturally Barney Bubbles designs can be found in the thick of it.

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Malcolm McLaren in Witches trenchcoat on the steps of the British Museum 1983

Jun 9th, 2015

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This portrait of Malcolm McLaren was captured among the columns outside the entrance to London’s august British Museum by Andy Rosen in 1983.

In the photograph taken during promotion of the Duck Rock album, which was released at the start of 1983, McLaren sported a rare trenchcoat design from the Witches collection he and Vivienne Westwood debuted on the catwalk that spring.

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The Old Man: Philip “Staff” Gorman (April 25, 1903 – June 8, 1980)

Jun 8th, 2015
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//My father in uniform on his wedding day, March 2, 1940, north London//

“Bad thing for a young man to lose his father” Charles Cheeryble, Nicholas Nickleby

My father died 35 years ago today.

I was 20 at the time, and witnessed him take his final breath. The narrow world of music and clothes I inhabited was preoccupied with Ian Curtis’s recent suicide; given the fact that my father had been diagnosed with cancer four years previously and spent the last 18 months on earth hospitalised and fighting like a bastard for his life, I couldn’t see what the fuss was about. PiL’s Death Disco was much more my speed.

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‘A booby trap in Pop Art’: The tits tee featured in 1972 Frederick’s of Hollywood catalogue

Jun 2nd, 2015
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//Detail, Frederick’s catalogue. Photo: Johnny Deluxe//

Congratulations to our pal Johnny Deluxe for this fantastic spot; he happened upon this kitsch sketch of an original tits t-shirt while leafing through an early 70s Frederick’s Of Hollywood catalogue.

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//Catalogue page. Photo: Johnny Deluxe//

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A cause for celebration: Digitisation of all 239 issues of Spare Rib

Jun 2nd, 2015

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Great news that the British Library has digitised the archive of one of the most important magazines of modern times: Spare Rib.

If you don’t know it or haven’t seen the publication, you are in for a treat. As the British Library’s politics and public life curator Polly Russell says, Spare Rib was “funny, irreverent, intelligent and passionate… a product of its time which is also somehow timeless”.

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