Paul Gorman

New York

Marc Newson’s tribute to Malcolm McLaren for Performa

Malcolm McLaren award for Performa 11, designed by Marc Newson. Photo: Jean Vong.
//The Malcolm. Photo (c) Jean Vong.//

This is The Malcolm, the award designed by Marc Newson for the visual arts bienniale Performa; the inaugural award was presented a couple of weeks back by Greil Marcus and Lou Reed to the Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson for his 12-hour piece Bliss.

Honouring the late Malcolm McLaren, The Malcolm goes to artists under 40 who demonstrate “the most innovative and thought-provoking performance” during Performa’s three-week bienniale.

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The Cowboys came from Colt Studio

//Longhorns Dance by Colt (Jim French) from Manpower! issue 7, 1974.//

My theorising over the roots of the Cowboys t-shirt has uncovered the true source of the main image: a 1969 drawing by the artist Jim French reproduced in a 1974 issue of his magazine Manpower!.

French has an international following for his gay-themed photographic + illustrative work, via his Colt Studio image-bank and work as “Rip Colt” and “Luger”.

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Classifieds: Jerry Nolan’s advert in Rolling Stone June 14 1969

I haven’t had it confirmed – nor seen this in any music history – but I believe this line ad to have been placed by Jerry Nolan three years before he replaced Billy Murcia as the drummer in the New York Dolls.

It appeared in the June 14, 1969 edition of Rolling Stone, the “first British issue” of the magazine produced in collaboration with newly recruited staff in London.

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From The Vaults: Patti Smith, Andy Warhol’s Interview, October 1973

As a companion to today’s post on the Horses cover, here’s another Patti Smith item from the archive: a feature by Penny Green from the October 1973 issue of Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine.

Coinciding with the publication of Smith’s poetry book Witt, the photographs for the Interview piece were taken by Barbara Walz (who later produced The Fashion Makers with Bernadine Morris).

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Zines: Bad Seed 1-3

Published 1984-85, here are the covers and some content from the first three editions of Bad Seed, Miriam Linna’s celebration of Juvenile Delinquency, the “overnight plunge into general degeneracy” among US teens in the 50s.

At the time the JD scare prompted a media frenzy which was accompanied by an explosion of books, music, flicks and fashions.

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Documentaries: All Dolled Up

Bob Gruen + Nadya Beck’s All Dolled Up is a cast-iron rock-doc.

For three years in the early 70s they toted new-fangled video equipment trailing the New York Dolls, capturing fab performances, photo-shoots, media encounters, backstage delirium, fan interviews, even dancing at Rodney Bingenheimer’s E Club (the precursor to his English Disco).

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