Continue reading The Third Earl Of Harrow: Screaming Lord Sutch at Let It Rock
The Third Earl Of Harrow: Screaming Lord Sutch at Let It Rock
Malcolm McLaren
Richard Hell + Young Kim present the Performa 15 Malcolm McLaren Award to Edgar Arceneaux
On Sunday night the performance art biennial Performa 15 culminated with a celebration of the 40th anniversary of punk.
As part of the event at New York’s Hôtel Americano, the Malcolm McLaren Award – designed by Marc Newson with $10,000 prize money – was presented to Edgar Arceneaux by Young Kim of the McLaren Estate and writer/musician Richard Hell.
Arceneaux won for his experimental play, “Until, Until, Until . . .,” inspired by the controversial appearance by African-American actor Ben Vereen in black-face at Ronald Reagan’s 1981 inaugural celebration.
McLaren – A New Type Of Artist: Subject of my talk last night to CSM fine art students
Last night I gave a talk to fine art students at Central Saint Martins as part of the London art and design college’s Monday Guest Lecture series.
The title – Malcolm McLaren: A New Type Of Artist – stemmed from the catalogue introduction by the late Paul Taylor to Impresario, the 1988 New York New Museum show he curated about McLaren’s activities.
Taylor wrote:
Clearly, Malcolm McLaren is a “bad guy” of contemporary pop culture, a reputation that in these times makes him all the more appealing. To many in the worlds of art and social criticism, however, McLaren is like a new type of artist. A “producer” in more than one sense of the word, he has literally orchestrated new musical events and created provocative “cultural texts” within the mass-media. He has also shown that art in the post-avant-garde era is a matter of synthesis, of combining elements from radically different sources. . . . McLaren is a populariser, which is to say that he is a pioneer.
‘Blowing up bridges so there is no way back’: Malcolm McLaren, Situationists + Sex Pistols remembered by Fred Vermorel in new exhibition catalogue
Considered as an artwork, a two-and-a-half year project, and in its own terms, McLaren’s Sex Pistols’ was as seminal and resonant as Picasso’s Guernica.
Only this was a masterpiece made not of paint and canvas but of headlines and scandal, scams and factoids, rumour and fashion, slogans, fantasies and images and (I almost forgot) songs, all in a headlong scramble to auto-destruction.
For it was equally a Situationist treatise-by-example, the unremitting and obdurate core being McLaren’s grasp of the theory of situations as proposed by the SI.
Indeed, the story of the Pistols is a Situationist textbook of how to create situations from which there is no return. You refuse to negotiate, to compromise, to be co-opted, you exacerbate every crisis and recklessly play loser wins and then you blow up all the bridges so then there is no way back.
We are then forced to invent another future. Or maybe simply relish the mess, “the ecstasy of making things worse”.
From Fred Vermorel’s memoir which appears exclusively in the new exhibition catalogue.
The catalogue for the exhibition Eyes For Blowing Up Bridges is now available.
The lavishly illustrated 100-page book includes a foreword by John Hansard Gallery’s Ros Carter and Stephen Foster, my introduction, an essay by co-curator David Thorp and a specially commissioned memoir of Malcolm McLaren and his connections to post-war radicals by his art-school friend and collaborator Fred Vermorel.
Cosey Fanni Tutti’s Aggro Chic intervention in Club International
A few months before Cosey Fanni Tutti upset the apple-cart as a member with Genesis Breyer P. Orridge of COUM Transmissions – the “wreckers of civilisation” who staged the Prostitution exhibition at London’s ICA – the performance artist/musician posed with another model for a 1976 issue of men’s magazine Club International.
Continue reading Cosey Fanni Tutti’s Aggro Chic intervention in Club International
Punk in London: Exciting new project coming in the New Year
These are just some of the research materials I have been sifting through for the last few weeks for a project with a fabulous partner coming in the New Year.
We’re doing all we can to apply a fresh and vital approach to the much worked-over turf of Punk in London in the mid-70s.
Watch this space.
Punk London announced at Be Reasonable Demand The Impossible: Vive le Punk! Vive art schools! Vive London!
Our event Be Reasonable Demand The Impossible on Friday night was an out-and-out success, attended by hundreds from all walks of life, including students of London’s Central Saint Martins for whom it was primarily organised.
We were honoured that the London Mayor’s Office selected Be Reasonable to unveil Punk London, the year-long calendar of exhibitions, gigs and events in the capital in 2016.
More details will be forthcoming at the end of the month; the GLA’s ‘cultural partner’ Marcus Davey of Camden venue The Roundhouse gave a few hints and showed for the first time the logo designed by graphic artist Neville Brody.
Be Reasonable: Fashion’s finest discuss McLaren & Westwood’s influence at first public screening of 80s catwalk footage
The cream of British fashion journalism – Dean Mayo Davies, Ben Reardon and Lou Stoppard – will be discussing the indomitable body of design work produced by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood at tomorrow’s event Be Reasonable Demand The Impossible.
Another exclusive! Sneak peek inside Malcolm McLaren’s 1975/6 notebook at Be Reasonable Demand The Impossible
Among the exciting exclusives at tomorrow’s event Be Reasonable Demand The Impossible will be a presentation providing a fascinating look inside Malcolm McLaren’s 1975/6 notebook, kept at the time when the Sex Pistols were starting out and he was running the boutique Sex at 430 King’s Road with partner Vivienne Westwood.
Be Reasonable Demand The Impossible badges by Central Saint Martins
Central Saint Martins have produced these badges for the event at the Kings Cross site tomorrow night marking the 40th anniversary of the Sex Pistols live debut and the cultural legacy of their manager Malcolm McLaren.
Continue reading Be Reasonable Demand The Impossible badges by Central Saint Martins