//Box advert for the Beckenham Arts Lab run by David Bowie and Mary Finnigan in IT #59, July 1969//

//News story about the Goldsmiths Arts Festival organised by Malcolm Edwards and his fellow student Niall Martin in IT #59//

Researching my archive during lockdown for a project has given me the opportunity to thoroughly assess individual publications, none more so than the 59th issue of underground paper IT, which hit the streets in early July 1969.

This particular edition features a couple of small items which provide clues as to the countercultural activities at the time of two Londoners who would go on to define pop culture in the 1970s: David Bowie and Malcolm McLaren.

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Tags: Alexander Trocchi, Beckenham Arts Lab, Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, David Bowie, Give Peace A Chance, Goldsmiths College of Art, Harold Pinter, IT, King Crimson, L. Ron Hubbard, Mary Finnigan, Mick Jagger, Plastic Ono Band, Pretty Things, RD Laing, Rolling Stones, Sun Ra, William Burroughs

Martin Stone hopped, pre-dawn, through the Cheshire street market, scavenging books. Winklepickers, tourniquet trousers, mildewed beret, bulging swagbag: Blind Pew impersonated by Max Wall. Cigarette grafted to trembling, prehensile fingers, he was an anthology of retro fashion. And in his wake there shimmered a vortex of gossip and, amazingly, goodwill…  Iain Sinclair, The Independent, February 18, 1995

Sad to note the passing of Martin Stone, dapper devil and rock and rolling rare book dealer par excellence.

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Tags: Alexander Trocchi, Chilli Willi And The Red Hot Peppers, Head Heritage, Iain Sinclair, Jake Riviera, Julian Cope, Martin Stone, Mighty Baby, Pink Fairies, the 101'ers, William Burroughs

//Top: Anarchy Shirt designed by Malcolm McLaren + Vivienne Westwood, 1976. Worn by Sex Pistols acolytes Jordan (Pamela Rooke) and Simon Barker for performances and TV appearances by the group. Private collection. Above left: screening room for Paris Capital Of The XXIst Century, Malcolm McLaren, 2010; right: vitrines and monitors in gallery 2. Photos: Steve Shrimpton//

Hope you enjoy this selection of installation shots from the exhibition Eyes For Blowing Up Bridges: Joining The Dots From The Situationist International To Malcolm McLaren, currently wowing visitors to Southampton’s John Hansard Gallery.

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Tags: Alexander Trocchi, Asger Jorn, David Thorp, Guy Debord, John Hansard Gallery, Jordan, King Mob, Liverpool John Moore's University, Paris Capital of the XXIst Century, Simon Barker, Situationist International: John McCready Archive, Steve Shrimpton, William Burroughs

//Viewing exhibits in Gallery 2 at John Hansard Gallery. Pic JHG//

The opening of new exhibition Eyes For Blowing Up Bridges: Joining The Dots From The Situationist International To Malcolm McLaren at the weekend was a great success.

//Visitors Nick Abrahams + Suze Malyon with their dog Mrs Shufflewick//

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Tags: Alexander Trocchi, Asger Jorn, Barry Martin, Cath Slessor, David Thorp, Derek Harris, Guy Debord, Jean Francois Carly, John Hansard Gallery, King Mob, Mrs Shufflewick, Nick Abrahams, Richard Cabut, Saaya Nohara, Stephen Foster, Suze Malyon, Tony Drayton, William Burroughs

DÉTOURNÉD PAINTING

Intended for the public. Easy reading

Collectors and museums,
be modern
If you have old paintings,
do not despair.
Keep your memories
But detourne them
So they correspond to your time
Why reject the old [paintings]
If one can modernize them?
With a few brushstrokes
Modernize your old culture
Be up to date
and distinguished at the same time
Painting is over
Better give it the final blow
Detourne
Long live painting

Asger Jorn, exhibition catalogue, Galerie Rive Gauche, Paris, May 1959. Translation: Young Kim.

Among the pertinent exhibits of our forthcoming show Eyes For Blowing Up Bridges is the statement disavowing traditional approaches to artistic creation made by the Danish artist and writer Asger Jorn in the late 50s.

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Tags: Alexander Trocchi, Asger Jorn, Fin de Copenhague, Gallery International, Guy Brett, Internationale Lettriste, John McCready Archive, Let It Rock, Mémoires, New Musical Express, Parade, Peel + Lift, Ten Gauge City, Vivienne Westwood, William Burroughs, Worlds End

Today David Thorp and I worked with the team at John Hansard Gallery on the first day of the installation of our forthcoming exhibition Eyes For Blowing Up Bridges: Joining the dots from the Situationist International to Malcolm McLaren.

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Tags: Alexander Trocchi, Asger Jorn, David Thorp, Desire And Helen, Frances Lengel, I Groaned With Pain, Jamie Reid, John Hansard Gallery, John McCready Archive, King Mob, Liverpool John Moore's University, Paris Capital of the XXIst Century, Shallow 1-21, Situationist International, Snow White & The Sir Punks, William Burroughs

Eyes For Blowing Up Bridges* is the title of the forthcoming exhibition about the creative interplay between a group of remarkable radical artists, poets, writers and activists who initiated, perpetrated and influenced a range of post-war alternatives.

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Tags: Alexander Trocchi, Asger Jorn, David Thorp, David Wise, Derek Harris, Guy Debord, Hervé Falcou, John Hansard Gallery, King Mob, Nostalgia Of Mud, Paul Burgess, Stuart Wise, William Burroughs

//The t-shirts show the deliberate production of variants within the limited edition designed and written by McLaren and printed on the simple square pattern produced by Vivienne Westwood in 1974. © Malcolm McLaren Estate//

Two of Malcolm McLaren’s t-shirts from the very first production run of I Groaned With Pain – the notorious text design produced with Vivienne Westwood in 1974 – will be featured in Eyes For Blowing Up Bridges, the exhibition I am co-curating with David Thorp at Southampton’s John Hansard Gallery this autumn.

//T-shirt with central tear on light blue jersey with exterior seaming, labelled, Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood, 1974. 360mm x 375mm. © Malcolm McLaren Estate//

I Groaned With Pain is named after the first four words of the paragraph of text McLaren lifted from beat writer Alexander Trocchi’s erotic novel Helen And Desire (published in 1954 by Olympia Press under the pseudonym Francis Lengel).

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Tags: Alexander Trocchi, Antiquarius, Asger Jorn, bernie Rhodes, David Thorp, FRancis Lengel, Guy Debord, Helen And Desire, I Groaned With Pain, John Hansard Gallery, King Mob, Let It Rock, Olympia Press, Parade, The Clash, Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die, Vivienne Westwood, William Burroughs

Tonight I am hosting an event at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum: an ‘in conversation’ with Boy George about the importance and influence of popular culture’s greatest manipulator of visual identity, David Bowie.

//George O'Dowd overlooked by Big Brother in his room at a squatted house in Carburton Street, central London, 1978.//

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Tags: Boy George, City Lights Studio, David Bowie, Jimmy King, Kate Simon, Mick Rock, Philip Sallon, Pin Ups, Sue Clowes, Terry O'Neill, The Foundry, V&A, William Burroughs

//Jacket, Beatbooks 62 from collage by Norman Ogue Mustill, 1967.//

The new Beatbooks catalogue returns Andrew Sclanders to his primary preoccupation with the creative outpourings of the American Beats and their fellow travellers.
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Tags: Andrew Sclanders, Charles Bukowski, Norman Ogue Mustill, William Burroughs