Paul Gorman

Monster V&A design book: Bubbles, Hirst, The Queen + Bowie get special treatment…but where’s Malcolm?

British Design from 1948: Innovation in the Modern Age

British Design From 1948: Innovation In The Modern Age – the new book accompanying the forthcoming show at the V+A – is a bumper edition: 400 pages weighing in at 5lbs.

It’s cheering to see Barney Bubbles’ design Ian Dury With Love granted upfront prominence; the poster is in select company given special treatment by the book’s designer, Barnbrook’s Daniel Streat. The others are: Cecil Beaton’s 1953 coronation portrait of The Queen, a shot of Damien Hirst’s Notting Hill restaurant Pharmacy and Brian Duffy’s Aladdin Sane portrait of David Bowie.

Barney Bubbles' Ian Dury poster treated by Jonathan Barnbrook

Continue reading Monster V&A design book: Bubbles, Hirst, The Queen + Bowie get special treatment…but where’s Malcolm?

SXSW installations: The look of music


If you’re in Austin TX – and there’s a chance you might be since hundreds of thousands of people have descended on the city for the annual SXSW film/music/interactive conflab taking place there this week – try and nip along to the Ray Ban Legendary Visions house at 78 Rainey Street on the eastside for a gander at the room collages/installations I have engineered to reflect my take on the look of music.

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Ian Dury With Love: Barney Bubbles back at the V&A

Ian Dury With Love, 60in x 40in poster for the 1977 Live Stiffs tour, designed by Barney Bubbles.
Ian Dury With Love, 60in x 40in poster, 1977.

I sourced this incredible large-scale Barney Bubbles-designed poster from a private collection for the V&A’s forthcoming exhibition British Design: 1948-2012.

Chris Breward, co-curator with Ghislaine Wood, credits my 2010 exhibition Process (which focused on Bubbles’ working practices) for having persuaded the V&A to foreground the work of the late graphic designer in the new show.

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Photography: Willie Christie on the (No Pussyfooting) cover

No Pussyfooting front
//Front cover (No Pussyfooting), Fripp & Eno, EG/Island, 1973.//

The final piece in Tate Modern’s current Yayoi Kusama show – her dramatic Infinity Mirror Room – brought to my vinyl-fixated mind one of the greatest record sleeves of all time: the gatefold for (No Pussyfooting), the album released in 1973 by Brian Eno and Robert Fripp.

All of a piece with the music it packages – prismatic, playful, calm, cerebral, oblique – the four-part composition was photographed and designed at Eno’s behest by photographer/filmmaker Willie Christie.

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Whitney Houston at VH1 Divas 1999

I was in the audience at the Beacon Theatre NYC for the 1999 VH1 Divas, where this Whitney Houston performance was recorded.

Her presence during this particular song is electrifying; she exudes vulnerability, a tortured female star (the wrong side of 35 according to the precepts of the global music industry) visibly dealing with the downside of unimaginable fame + fortune.

When Houston wasn’t onstage, she and Bobby Brown were sat a few rows ahead.

They were looped, out there. Brown was wearing what looked like an original South Beach Leather loose-stitched suit (a la Al Green on the sleeve of his Greatest Hits) complete with Po’Boy cap.

When Houston was onstage, he tore it up in the audience, cheering and hollering his support.

I love the skittering It’s Not Right But It’s OK. She nailed it that night.

John Frankland on Damien Hirst – The Complete Spot Paintings 1986-2011

Sculptor John Frankland is a near-contemporary of Damien Hirst’s; both studied at Goldsmith’s in the 80s and their work has been included in the same group shows and prominent collections.

I asked John for his take on the grand Gagogo gesture of The Complete Spot Paintings, the exhibition which has “taken over the planet” (according to some press reports) by showing 1500 examples of one of the artist’s signature works across the 11 Gagosian galleries.

John visited the London shows, in Britannia Street and Davies Street.

Continue reading John Frankland on Damien Hirst – The Complete Spot Paintings 1986-2011

Beatbooks 59: Pulp Junkies, The Naked Lunch, Beats + Outsiders, Concrete, Visual + Sound Poetry

Cover design based on artwork from: (front) C.Comics No. 2, 1965; (back) The Friendly Way, 1972.

The new BeatBooks catalogue is preoccupied with a print netherworld encompassing one-offs, limited editions and short-runs published by  concrete poets, beats and other outsiders.

There are also juicy examples of smack-sensationalising pulp fiction and – in one section alone – 36 items relating to The Naked Lunch, including  Chicago Review excerpts from 1958 and William Burroughs’ first US LP release.
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