Paul Gorman

Magick Is Freedom! (After Barney Bubbles) opens in London this week

magickSHOWwebx_0 When I first saw it I was questioning a lot of things, not least my adequacy. Things like inspiration, influences, references . . . where do things come from? Copying things—not as “homage'”or “pastiche”, but dying to get inside a thing. Inhabit it. Nostalgia too. Using machines. Colour. Systems. Perpetual motion. Automatism. Copying things. Graham Wood on Existence Is Unhappiness.

This week sees the London opening of Magick Is Freedom! (After Barney Bubbles), an exhibition of the series of prints made by designer Graham Wood in response to Existence Is Unhappiness, the fold-out poster for the 12th issue of underground magazine Oz published in May 1968 and designed by Barney Bubbles with Sid Squeak and others.

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I Knew Jim Knew: Jim Walrod knows a thing or two…

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//Jacket photograph Terry Richardson with shots from Walrod’s Instagram feed//

Design authority Jim Walrod wears a deep and wide-ranging understanding of his subject – specifically that pertaining to modernism in furniture, interiors, product design and architecture  – lightly.

This is refreshing in a field populated by bloodless experts and humourless know-alls. The founder of important 90s/00s store Form & Function, Walrod –  described as “the ultimate design raconteur” by André Balazs and “the furniture pimp” by the Beastie Boys – is above all an enthusiast.

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Guest post: Peter Knock pays tribute to Robyn Denny (1930-2014)

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//Robyn Denny, early 60s. Photo: Bernard Jacobson Gallery//

Artist/illustrator Peter Knock pays tribute to the British ‘Situation’ painter Robyn Denny, who has died:

Sad to learn of the death of abstract painter Robyn Denny last Tuesday (May 20).  It surprised me that he was, in fact, 83; my image of him is locked into the 60s when he was one of the hip and talented artists to have emerged from the Royal College of Art (where he studied in the 50s).

Great Big Biggest Wide London, Denny’s mural for Austin Reed’s Regent Street store, conveyed classic 1960s new age optimism, and received the ultimate seal of approval as a piece defining of its era when The Beatles asked to be photographed standing in front of it in 1963.

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Beat This: A Hip Hop History – Malcolm McLaren taken by Michael Holman to the Zulu Nation in August 1981

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Beat This: A Hip Hop History is an hour-long documentary broadcast by BBC in its Arena strand in 1984 and directed by Dick Fontaine (who I interviewed for my Goldie book back in the early 00s).

In one section Malcolm McLaren talks about his August 1981 introduction to Afrika Bambaataa’s Zulu Nation in the south Bronx.

This was effected by artist/filmmaker/writer Michael Holman; his often overlooked achievements include actually naming the genre “hip hop” in his East Village Eye column, founding the noise group Gray with Jean-Michel Basquiat (Holman also wrote the 1996 Julian Schnabel-directed biopic), running the world’s first hip-hop club (Negril, on 11th Street), creating the New York City Breakers and making the films and TV shows Catch A Beat, Beat Street and Graffiti Rock.

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The Clash: Rare sketches by Derek Boshier in the Flowers Gallery archive

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//Sketch for songbook cover, 13 x 9″. Derek Boshier 1979 courtesy Flowers Gallery//

While interrogating materials for Rethink/Re-Entry – the monograph of artist Derek Boshier I am editing – I’ve come across many delights, including these sketches in the Flowers Gallery archive for one of the most visually striking documents of the post-punk era, CLASH 2nd Songbook.

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Marisol’s Love + David Parkinson’s image of Mona Solomons with SEX ankle boot

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//Left: Love, 1962, Marisol. Plaster and glass (Coca-Cola bottle), 6 1/4 x 4 1/8 x 8 1/8″, MoMA. Right: From I Get A Kick Out Of You, David Parkinson, Club International, 1975//

A disturbing David Parkinson image from a mid-70s fashion shoot for British porn magazine Club International puts me in mind of the  early 60s sculpture Love by the artist Marisol.

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David Armstrong: The Dark Parade on the Upper East Side

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Set in a discreet 19th Century neo-classical carriage house in Manhattan’s Upper East Side, The Dark Parade is a meditative installation of assemblages, sculptures and recent photography by David Armstrong.

One visitor who has experienced the immersive show – visits are by appointment with Armstrong’s gallery Casa De Costa – noted the “dark works with an edge of humour and ominous atmosphere” and likens The Dark Parade to “a mix of the memento mori via a hard-on-its-luck antiques store”.

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//Left: The Outer Limits, 2010. 8.5 x 12.4 x 8.5in. Right: Untitled, 2014. 24 x 35.25in//

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Derek Boshier in Pop Go The Women: The Other Story Of Pop Art

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//”She was an instigator and an enabler.” Boshier discusses Pauline Boty in Pop Go The Women//

Catch if you can Alistair Sooke’s excellent BBC documentary Pop Go The Women: The Other Story Of Pop Art. Derek Boshier – subject of my next book – is among the interviewees, talking about his contemporary Pauline Boty.

Her work, like the other subjects of the programme, has been neglected in the circumscribed narrative of Pop. In Boshier’s words, Boty is important, not least because she was “an instigator and an enabler” to the male artists who hog the story on both sides of the Atlantic.

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//Boshier and Boty captured twisting in Ken Russell’s 1962 BBC documentary Pop Goes The Easel//
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//Rosalyn Drexler. In the background her 1967 painting Marilyn Pursued by Death//

The film’s revelation for me is the American Rosalyn Drexler, whose art is identified convincingly by Sooke as “scathing, critical, strong and stern”. Pop Go The Women is available to view on BBC iPlayer for the next five days here.

Derek Boshier: Rethink/Re-Entry is published by Thames & Hudson next spring.

Jim French BC: Before Colt (+ before the SEX shop Naked Cowboys)

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//Johnny Cash by Jim French//

Prior to Jim French launching his homoerotic imprint Colt Studios, the venerable American illustrator and photographer made his bones on Madison Avenue in the 1950s and 60s producing work for such clients as Columbia Records and scarf and handkerchief designer Tammis Keefe.

Now a selection of French’s artworks from this period are going on display in an exhibition at Palm Springs gallery Nat Reed.

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//Frank Sinatra for Columbia Record Club, Jim French//
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//Textile design for Tammis Keefe, Jim French//

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