//Gone Ladies, with Ian Cameron, 1966. Off-set litho, 58 x 44.5cm,(edition size unknown). Published by Vandal Publications for Gear//
One of the exhibitions I’m most looking forward to visiting this autumn is London dealer Rob Tufnell’s presentation of the so-called “poster poems” produced by the late Christopher Logue.
//The Dance, from the series News From The Metropolis, Derek Boshier, 2014. Ink and collage on paper////From Best Foot Forward, Derek Boshier, 2014. Film//
To coincide with the publication of the Derek Boshier monograph Rethink/Re-entry, writer/curator Guy Brett and I are putting together an exhibition of the same name which will be held at Flowers Gallery in Cork Street, Central London this autumn.
Eyes For Blowing Up Bridges* is the title of the forthcoming exhibition about the creative interplay between a group of remarkable radical artists, poets, writers and activists who initiated, perpetrated and influenced a range of post-war alternatives.
//The Identi-Kit Man, Derek Boshier, centre, Tate Britain. Photo: Chris Stephens.//
Chris Stephens, the Tate’s head of displays and head curator of modern British art, has organised for Derek Boshier’s 1962 painting to be hung at Tate Britain on London’s Millbank.
Two of Malcolm McLaren’s t-shirts from the very first production run of I Groaned With Pain – the notorious text design produced with Vivienne Westwood in 1974 – will be featured in Eyes For Blowing Up Bridges, the exhibition I am co-curating with David Thorp at Southampton’s John Hansard Gallery this autumn.
I Groaned With Pain is named after the first four words of the paragraph of text McLaren lifted from beat writer Alexander Trocchi’s erotic novel Helen And Desire (published in 1954 by Olympia Press under the pseudonym Francis Lengel).
//Reigning Apps And Blogs, acrylic on canvas, 187 x 122 x 3cm, 2011//
Check out, if you have the chance, Derek Boshier’s giant 2011 work Reigning Apps And Blogs in the summer show curated by Michael Craig Martin at London’s Royal Academy of Arts.
//Explanatory text panel which appeared on the inside cover of Icteric No. 2 with 2004 note, from King Mob: A Critical Hidden History////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.
//A doozy: This point-of-sale design by Barney Bubbles for Elvis Costello & The Attractions’ 1980 LP Get Happy!! is among rare rock posters on show at Mod Lang in Ludlow. Photo: Paul Bradshaw//
The regions are where it’s at these days, so we are told, and naturally Barney Bubbles designs can be found in the thick of it.