Paul Gorman

Art

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

T&H Catalogue - Rethink:Re-entry copy
//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.

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

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!

Icteric - note on cover
//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.

Continue reading 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!

Derek Boshier’s ‘sardonic fairy tale’ 16 Situations in the spell-binding Land Marks: Structures For A Poetic Universe

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//16 Situations in vitrine at Land Marks. Photo: Jasper Weinstein Sheffield//

I’m pretty late with this but there are still three or so weeks to go, so, if you have the opportunity, I recommend a visit to Hauser + Wirth Somerset, home until June 21 of the contemplative and poised exhibition Land Marks: Structures For A Poetic Universe.

Curated by historians Nicholas Olsberg and Markus Lähteenmäki, Land Marks presents 100 architectural studies and works constituting an investigation into the boundaries between sculpture and architecture and landscapes and cities.

The spell-binding space at Durslade Farm outside the village of Bruton provides the perfect setting; I am thrilled that the curators included Derek Boshier’s quizzical 1971 work 16 Situations.

Continue reading Derek Boshier’s ‘sardonic fairy tale’ 16 Situations in the spell-binding Land Marks: Structures For A Poetic Universe

Introducing first UK screening of Malcolm McLaren’s completed Paris: Capital Of The XXIst Century at The Performance Studio next week

Malcolm McLaren

McLaren opened up the frontiers between artistic and wider cultural attitudes by taking fashion and music out of their respective contexts and translating them into new formats that captured the wider popular zeitgeist. A closer look at his seemingly disarticulated, exuberant and streetwise oeuvre shows it to be consistent and, in its own way, profound.

David Thorp

On Wednesday (June 3) I’m introducing a screening of Malcolm McLaren’s Paris: Capital Of The XXIst Century at The Performance Studio in Peckham, south London.

This is a the first-ever opportunity in this country to see the final work, which McLaren completed a matter of weeks before his death in April 2010. A working version was shown here just once, at Newcastle’s Baltic in November 2009.

Continue reading Introducing first UK screening of Malcolm McLaren’s completed Paris: Capital Of The XXIst Century at The Performance Studio next week

Richard Hambleton + Malcolm McLaren = Witches x The Shadow Man

Malcolm McLaren posing on the streets of NYC. April 1983. © Bob Gruen / www.bobgruen.com Please contact Bob Gruen's studio to purchase a print or license this photo. email: websitemail01@aol.com phone: 212-691-0391
//Malcolm McLaren and Andrea Linz with a Hambleton Shadow Man in the West Village, NYC, April 1983. © Bob Gruen/www.bobgruen.com. Please contact Bob Gruen’s studio to purchase a print or license this photo. Email: websitemail01@aol.com Phone: + 212-691-0391//
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//Witches Shadow Man skirt, 1983. Malcolm McLaren, Vivienne Westwood and Richard Hambleton. This image (c) www.paulgormanis.com//

An under-acknowledged art world connection forged by Malcolm McLaren during his fashion design partnership with Vivienne Westwood was to the godfather of street art, conceptual artist Richard Hambleton.

During his forays in New York in the early 80s, McLaren was struck by Hambleton’s eerie representations of The Shadow Man figure; there was one on a wall in Bethune Street in the West Village, near the studio of McLaren’s photographer friend and ally Bob Gruen.

Continue reading Richard Hambleton + Malcolm McLaren = Witches x The Shadow Man

LP artwork distilled, venue interiors re-appraised and video portraits of Ian Brown, Matt Johnson and Richard Strange at Peter Wilkins’ Lost In Music

60s, Van Morrison - Astral Weeks, Peter Wilkins, 2015
//Astral Weeks – Van Morrison, Peter Wilkins, 2015//
Hammersmith Apollo, Peter Wilkins, 2015
//Hammersmith Apollo, Peter Wilkins, 2015//

In the 21st century, when digital downloads displaced compact discs as the format of consumer choice, music went naked into the world, unadorned by design or packaging. Yet this in turn gave rise to vigorous rear-guard action in the growing appreciation of what was fast disappearing. As if from the dead, vinyl made a comeback and the fan in Wilkins places him in a key position to cogitate this phenomenon.
From my text for the Lost In Music catalogue

Continue reading LP artwork distilled, venue interiors re-appraised and video portraits of Ian Brown, Matt Johnson and Richard Strange at Peter Wilkins’ Lost In Music

Ms. Caroline Coon: Radical person recalls Pauline Boty’s My Colouring Book and the first time she heard Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett – at Derek Boshier’s Ladbroke Grove studio

caroline coon
//From Radical People, Vol 1, No 2//

Great to see heroine Caroline Coon among the subjects/contributors to the second issue of Radical People, Reba Maybury’s celebration of quinquagenarian-plus non-conformists.

Continue reading Ms. Caroline Coon: Radical person recalls Pauline Boty’s My Colouring Book and the first time she heard Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett – at Derek Boshier’s Ladbroke Grove studio

‘Our assumptions of Pop have become narrow. That word needs to be shaken open a little bit’ Derek Boshier in International Pop at Walker Arts Centre, Minneapolis

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Over time our assumptions of Pop have become more narrow. That word needs to be shook open a little bit. That history needs to be displaced a little bit. To allow for the diversity you have to go back to a more open idea of what Pop could be.
Darsie Alexander and Ryan Bartholomew, curators, International Pop

Today’s New York Times features Derek Boshier’s 1961 painting Special K as part of the newspaper’s coverage of International Pop, the new exhibition which addresses the fallacy that the movement was the preserve of the US and Britain.

Continue reading ‘Our assumptions of Pop have become narrow. That word needs to be shaken open a little bit’ Derek Boshier in International Pop at Walker Arts Centre, Minneapolis