It’s been a busy and satisfying week, rounded off by publication today in the Architects Journal of an essay of mine on the cultural significance of 430 King’s Road.
The Bookseller has announced that British imprint Constable is to publish my book Malcolm McLaren: The Biography.
This handsome fold-out poster is for the exhibition Potential Architecture, which opens at London’s Ambika P3 on March 11.
‘I’ve always liked what Goethe said: “The greatest thing a person can achieve is astonishment”.’
Derek Boshier
This is a delight. The magus Derek Boshier giving a Tate masterclass in life drawing from 2013:
Rethink/Re-Entry, the monograph of Boshier’s life’s work I am editing, is published this autumn by Thames & Hudson.
I’m fascinated by the modernist furniture and interiors produced by Francis Bacon before his emergence as “Bacon Agonistes”, in critic John Richardson’s memorable phrase.
This occurred in 1933 with the selection of Bacon’s painting Crucifixion by Herbert Read for his 1933 survey Art Now: An Introduction To The Theory Of Modern Painting And Sculpture; tellingly, the work by the 24-year-old was juxtaposed in the layout with Picasso’s 1929 Female Bather With Raised Arms. Picasso was the only 20th century artist who “fully captivated Bacon”, wrote his biographer Michael Peppiatt, while the artist said he decided to abandon furniture and interiors when he saw an exhibition of Picasso’s Dinard paintings at Paul Rosenberg’s Paris gallery in the late 20s.
Continue reading “Feeling his way”: Francis Bacon’s modernist furniture
I first met artist/curator Robert Gordon McHarg III two decades ago, when he was developing a sadly unrealised television project based around the annual Christmas extravaganza conducted by our mutual friend, Robert Lopez, aka El Vez The Mexican Elvis.
Continue reading Wild Westway Western Wear at the Joe Strummer Subway
When I first saw it I was questioning a lot of things, not least my adequacy. Things like inspiration, influences, references . . . where do things come from? Copying things—not as “homage'”or “pastiche”, but dying to get inside a thing. Inhabit it. Nostalgia too. Using machines. Colour. Systems. Perpetual motion. Automatism. Copying things. Graham Wood on Existence Is Unhappiness.
This week sees the London opening of Magick Is Freedom! (After Barney Bubbles), an exhibition of the series of prints made by designer Graham Wood in response to Existence Is Unhappiness, the fold-out poster for the 12th issue of underground magazine Oz published in May 1968 and designed by Barney Bubbles with Sid Squeak and others.
Continue reading Magick Is Freedom! (After Barney Bubbles) opens in London this week
Design authority Jim Walrod wears a deep and wide-ranging understanding of his subject – specifically that pertaining to modernism in furniture, interiors, product design and architecture – lightly.
This is refreshing in a field populated by bloodless experts and humourless know-alls. The founder of important 90s/00s store Form & Function, Walrod – described as “the ultimate design raconteur” by André Balazs and “the furniture pimp” by the Beastie Boys – is above all an enthusiast.
Continue reading I Knew Jim Knew: Jim Walrod knows a thing or two…
Artist/illustrator Peter Knock pays tribute to the British ‘Situation’ painter Robyn Denny, who has died:
Sad to learn of the death of abstract painter Robyn Denny last Tuesday (May 20). It surprised me that he was, in fact, 83; my image of him is locked into the 60s when he was one of the hip and talented artists to have emerged from the Royal College of Art (where he studied in the 50s).
Great Big Biggest Wide London, Denny’s mural for Austin Reed’s Regent Street store, conveyed classic 1960s new age optimism, and received the ultimate seal of approval as a piece defining of its era when The Beatles asked to be photographed standing in front of it in 1963.
Continue reading Guest post: Peter Knock pays tribute to Robyn Denny (1930-2014)
Set in a discreet 19th Century neo-classical carriage house in Manhattan’s Upper East Side, The Dark Parade is a meditative installation of assemblages, sculptures and recent photography by David Armstrong.
One visitor who has experienced the immersive show – visits are by appointment with Armstrong’s gallery Casa De Costa – noted the “dark works with an edge of humour and ominous atmosphere” and likens The Dark Parade to “a mix of the memento mori via a hard-on-its-luck antiques store”.
//Left: The Outer Limits, 2010. 8.5 x 12.4 x 8.5in. Right: Untitled, 2014. 24 x 35.25in//
Continue reading David Armstrong: The Dark Parade on the Upper East Side