Paul Gorman

Conversation

A night of conversation, music + libation to celebrate Totally Wired at Reference Point

Next Thursday (August 3) I’m going to be in conversation with the prominent writer and photographer Mark C. O’Flaherty at central London’s library/bookshop/bar Reference Point.

//Mark reminisces about his time at Boyz in Totally Wired//

We’ll be talking about the music press – the subject of my book Totally Wired, which is out now in paperback –  it’s history in relation to LGBTQ+ communities and Mark’s experiences working for such magazines as Melody Maker and Boyz.

Afterwards I’ll DJ a vinyl set of music-press-related sounds.

Bag your spot here.

//Totally Wired paperbacks in the Tate Britain bookshop//

Copies of Totally Wired are widely available, including from bookshop.org

Sartorial Style on Saturday: Talking about The Face, in conversation with Mark Powell, Samurai rogues + merchant dandies, Adam Murray on North, Roy Strong’s wardrobe and real men DO wear pink!

//I’ll be in conversation with Soho tailor Mark Powell at 2pm. Photo: Mark Powell//
//And talking about The Face from 3pm. This issue: Clinton McKenzie by Jamie Morgan/Ray Petri (Buffalo), June 1985 //

Sartorial Style is on this Saturday at the V&A and looks to be a humdinger.

The day of talks, q&as and presentations considers centuries of male style and elegance and also explores contemporary men’s fashion, bringing together curators, academics, photographers, writers and designers.

Sartorial Style kicks off with Real Men DO Wear Pink!, an investigation into masculine style up until 1800 by Susan North, the V&A’s curator of 17th & 18th Century fashion.

//Sir Roy Strong at the V&A, May 20, 1987. Photo: Peter Dazeley/Getty//

Continue reading Sartorial Style on Saturday: Talking about The Face, in conversation with Mark Powell, Samurai rogues + merchant dandies, Adam Murray on North, Roy Strong’s wardrobe and real men DO wear pink!

The Filth & The Fury: Punk Fashion at the NFT tomorrow with Amber Butchart + SEX & Seditionaries superstar Jordan Mooney

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Tomorrow I’m a guest of historian Amber Butchart at London’s National Film Theatre for a conversation and q&a about Punk fashion with her special invitee Jordan Mooney, SEX and Seditionaries superstar and inner member of the Sex Pistols circle.

I’ve put together a presentation from my archive to run during our chat, including images of Jordan’s striking series of visual personae and slides showing how the designs by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood at 430 King’s Road were regularly featured in the fashion and national press from the early 70s to the time of Punk later in the decade.

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//Selection of Let It Rock designs showcased in a May 1972 issue of The Sunday Times Magazine. Photos: Hans Feurer. Paul Gorman Archive//

Continue reading The Filth & The Fury: Punk Fashion at the NFT tomorrow with Amber Butchart + SEX & Seditionaries superstar Jordan Mooney

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

Viennese Season: Feminism – VALIE EXPORT and Friedl Kubelka at Richard Saltoun

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//Genitalpanik (Genital Panic), 1969. VALIE EXPORT. Poster, silk-screen print. 69.5 x 49.5cm. Copyright the artist. Courtesy Richard Saltoun Gallery//
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//Untitled (Pin-Up), 1973. Friedl Kubelka. Black and white photograph mounted on cardboard, 16.8 x 11.6cm//

This week sees the opening of the second of London gallery Richard Saltoun’s two-part exhibition of Viennese art: Feminism presents the work of VALIE EXPORT and Friedl Kubelka.

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//Smart/Export II, 1968/1970. VALIE EXPORT. Vintage gelatin silver print, 60.7 x 40.5 cm. Edition of 5 plus 2 artist’s proofs. Copyright the artist. Courtesy Richard Saltoun Gallery//

Continue reading Viennese Season: Feminism – VALIE EXPORT and Friedl Kubelka at Richard Saltoun

Come along and celebrate Drako Oho Zarhazar: Screening and Q+A with director Toby Amies at the BFI on Sunday night

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//Dread at the controls: Toby Amies. Photo: Sarah Lee//

A self-confessed exhibitionist who took the world for his stage and his life for art and theatre, a blank canvas on which to create and display himself without preconceptions or inhibitions. Heavily tattooed and pierced, with his thin waxed moustache jutting forth at a rakish angle, Drako Zarhazar was for many years a familiar figure around the Kemptown district of Brighton, striding forth with cape and cane, an aristocratic apparition who seemed emblematic of true transgressive bohemia.

The Quietus, 2013

This Sunday evening I’m hosting a q&a at London’s BFI with director Toby Amies after a screening of The Man Whose Mind Exploded, his valediction for the unique Drako Oho Zarhazar.

Come along, enjoy this incredible film and join in the conversation afterwards. Tickets are available here.

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The Man Whose Mind Exploded is being screened as part of BFI Flare, the London LGBT Film Festival.

Talking about – among other things – the here and now, brain damage, memories, love, faith, cocks and nipples: Q+A with Toby Amies at the BFI on March 30

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On Sunday March 30 I’ll be hosting a Q&A with film director Toby Amies (above right) after a screening at the BFI of The Man Whose Mind Exploded, Amies’ heart-rending documentary of the life of the extraordinary Drako  Zarharzar (above left).

We’ll be talking about Amies’ relationship with Drako, who died during the making of the film, and the often-fraught path documentarists tread between exploitation and celebration.

Other relevant matters, including the here and now, brain damage, memories, love, faith, cocks and nipples, may well crop up.

Come along, enjoy the film and join in; it will be a splendid way to spend a Sunday evening. Tickets here.

The Man Whose Mind Exploded is being screened as part of BFI Flare, the London LGBT Film Festival.