//World Hotel Room from The Brothel Series, Caroline Coon 1998, Oil on canvas, 122 x 153cm. Photo: Richard Holttum//
“For this solo exhibition to happen in the same year that we celebrate 100 years since some women were legally considered human and therefore entitled to vote is deeply significant for me. The formation of my feminist project always meant that I needed to be a figurative painter – this made me, right from the start as an art student in the late 1960s, a ‘girl’ outlaw in the then Greenbergian-ruled art establishment. I am what Linda Nochlin called, in her 1973 essay, a Realist Criminal.” Caroline Coon, 2018
Liverpool’s The Gallery is staging yet another must-see exhibition: the first solo show by painter, writer, thinker and countercultural figurehead Caroline Coon.
Entitled Caroline Coon: The Great Offender, it is curated by Martin Green and James Lawler, who have selected 29 of Coon’s works and are mounting the show as part of their ‘Perpetual Provocateurs’ 2018 season.
//Exhibition flyer incorporating One In The Eye (Mobile Glory Hole), David Harrison, 2012//
“Harrison embraces age-old symbols and fanciful myth, irrational beliefs and exuberant sexuality to name just a few in order to speak vividly about our own time and provide a different perspective on the disciplines of painting and sculpture”
Fuck Me is the title of the new show by great British artist David Harrison at Lungley at east London’s The Haggerston.
// Ego Geometria Sum V: Wigwam – 5 years, Helen Chadwick, 1982-83. Courtesy Richard Saltoun////Jo and Tail 1, Rose English, 1974. Courtesy Richard Saltoun//
I’m very much looking forward to Women Look At Women, the new exhibition which explores feminine identity through the work of 13 internationally renowned women artists opening at London’s Richard Saltoun tonight.
This summer I am staging PRINT! Tearing It Up, an exhibition at central London’s Somerset House which investigates and celebrates the power of independently produced British magazines and journals.
//The cover of the February 1982 issue of The Face featuring Sheila Rock’s striking image of Siouxsie Sioux at the Sonos store in Earlham Street. Photo: Lawrence Ajayi////Photo: Lawrence Ajayi////Photo: Lawrence Ajayi//
The Face magazine was firmly rooted in central London and like its host city it was inclusive, outward-looking, multi-cultural and diverse. While it expressed all the best aspects of creative London it was never parochial but simultaneously intent on making the connections to cities and sub cultures around the country and around the world.
Based throughout the 1980s and 90s in the enclaves around Carnaby Street, Mortimer Street, Marylebone and Clerkenwell, the magazine and its writers, designers, photographers and stylists became fundamental to the scenes they documented.
From Soho’s “The Cult With No Name” through rare groove, rave and British soul to Britpop, Brit Art and beyond, The Face was at the epicentre of the capital’s youth, music, fashion, art, design and club cultures.
At a time when the area’s venues and nightlife are being challenged by regulation, regeneration and urban development, this exhibition and companion events aim not only to shine a light on central London’s cultural significance but also highlight a time when a magazine could change the world.
Perhaps the greatest exemplars of The Face’s disruptive London attitude were cover stars such as John Lydon, Malcolm McLaren, George Michael and Suede as well as Kate from Croydon and Naomi from Streatham, who toppled the glamazons ruling fashion and endure as emblems of London street style and suss.
The Face: It was a London thing.
My exhibition about The Face magazine’s roots in, and relationship to, London is currently being staged at home leisure specialist Sonos’ newest store, in Earlham Street, Seven Dials.
//Left: detail, outer gatefold illustration by Holly Hollington, Greasy Truckers At Dingwalls Dancehall, Greasy Truckers Records, 1973; right: Uschi Obermaier and Michael J. Pollard, Oui, October 1973. Photo: Chris von Wangenheim//
//Left: Detail, uncredited cover photo, Oui, Oct 1973. Art director: Don Menell; right: detail; Greasy Truckers sleeve//
Recently I obtained a pristine copy of the October 1973 issue of American men’s magazine Oui, which contains a Chris von Wangenheim fashion shoot featuring actors Michael J. Pollard and Uschi Obermaier .
