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Long-standing revisionism is not unusual on the breakdown of a partnership, and there has been much rewriting – not least by the parties themselves – of the history of who did what, where and to whom in the three decades since the dissolution of one of the most potent creative collaborations in the history of […]
I’m assembling materials for Rethink/Re-Entry, the long-overdue monograph of the great British artist Derek Boshier I am currently editing. The book takes its title from the early Boshier painting which inspired rock’s ultimate art-directed star Bryan Ferry to choose the name Remake/Remodel for the first track on Roxy Music’s game-changing debut LP.
“There is a moment when ‘good taste’ becomes dead; what has been considered ‘bad’ is suddenly found to be invigorating. Fashion today has little to do with la mode and the tacky is often accepted as an essential part of the necessary ‘total’ look. It can be fun.” Cecil Beaton, introduction to the catalogue for […]
Tomorrow sees the opening of Space Is Deep, the latest exhibition from art collective Le Gun. The show, at London’s Daniel Blau gallery and featuring contributions from fellow travellers such as Wildcat Will Blanchard, Andrzej Klimowski and Will Sweeney, marks a departure for the group; for the first time work in colour is included alongside […]
In the period 1972-78 when the body of the partnership’s punk fashions were created, Malcolm McLaren’s art education and development as a largely conceptual visual artist was applied with Vivienne Westwood’s intuitive and sophisticated technical skills. The resultant potency of the work was achieved by such factors as: balance in the proportions; deft use of juxtaposition; […]
Best known as one of the founders of British design collective Tomato, Graham Wood chose a 1968 poster for underground magazine Oz as the wellspring for a series of 24 poster prints. I corresponded with Wood about the ways in which the original artwork- made by Barney Bubbles and his 60s design partner David Wills […]
Artist Jeremy Deller was commissioned to make a film by the BBC to coincide with the opening of his exhibition All That Is Solid Melts Into Air, a peroration on the consequences for Britain of the advent and aftermath of the Industrial Revolution. The film underlines Deller’s deft application of juxtaposition. Eight year old primary […]
Glam! The Performance Of Style – the exhibition which locates early 70s glam rock in the context of fine art and the interplay between “high” and mass culture – is opening at the Lentos Kunstmuseum in Linz, Austria later this month. I was a consultant to Glam!’s curator Darren Pih of Tate Liverpool, where the […]
I’m involved in a couple of events which open in London this week: artist Lucy Harrison’s multi-layered project Carnaby Echoes in the West End and photographer Nick Knight’s exhibition Punk at his Showstudio space in SW1.