My biography of the late Malcolm McLaren will now be published in April 2020, exactly 10 years after his premature death at the age of 64.
In my twin capacities as “biographer” of The Face and curator of last year’s British independent magazine exhibition PRINT!, I’ve been asked publicly and privately for my thoughts on the imminent online relaunch of the title (the plan is that the quarterly physical edition will follow in August, carrying a September dateline).
So here they are:
It’s interesting that the greatest anticipation for the magazine’s return is being generated for and by the fashion community. The PRs, writers, stylists and students who kept the flame alive after the publication’s 2004 demise are now busily banging the drum in response to the relaunch’s oddly one-note Instagram branding exercise, filling their feeds with excited content.
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.
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.
Continue reading KRAŜO! 3: Nostalgio Por La Jeto-Aĝo estas skatolo de lertaĵoj *
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).
Continue reading PRINT! Tearing It Up ends with a British Values bang
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.
Continue reading We’re keeping the dialectic open: Final week of PRINT! Tearing It Up at Somerset House
British law firm Charles Russell Speechlys, which supports the exhibitions at Somerset House’s Terrace Rooms, has produced a short film about PRINT! Tearing It Up, the show which I have organised at the gallery with SH senior curator Claire Catterall.
Continue reading ‘The trouble-making and oppositional aspects of this show are what we do so well’: PRINT! Tearing It Up at Somerset House supported by Charles Russell Speechlys
One of the most popular elements of PRINT! Tearing It Up – the celebration of independent magazines currently at Somerset House – is the giant mind map of British publishing which occupies an entire wall in the Terrace Rooms gallery.
Continue reading The PRINT! Mind Map: From A4 rough to 40 sq metre vinyl exhibit
Here’s a clip of me being interviewed about PRINT! Tearing It Up, which is free to visitors to Somerset House in central London until August 22:
Two short films representing the voices of independence in the Somerset House show PRINT! Tearing Up are available online and for visitors to the exhibition.
Continue reading Voices of independence: PRINT! films go live