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It is a little known fact that David Bowie was an occasional visitor to 430 King’s Road when it was operating as Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die. This manifestation of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s revolutionary boutique – which paid design tribute to the fetishistic studded leather attire of Britain’s early 60s […]
“As an artist Derek Boshier has never lost his sense of wonder at the world” – David Hockney The publication date of Derek Boshier: Rethink/Re-entry – the monograph of the great British artist I have edited – is confirmed as October 5. Published by Thames & Hudson with a preface by David Hockney, Rethink/Re-entry contains […]
In the 21st century, when digital downloads displaced compact discs as the format of consumer choice, music went naked into the world, unadorned by design or packaging. Yet this in turn gave rise to vigorous rear-guard action in the growing appreciation of what was fast disappearing. As if from the dead, vinyl made a comeback […]
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.
The last time I saw photographer/manager Leee Black Childers – who has died aged aged 69 – was fleetingly, a year or so ago at the crowded launch of his book and exhibition at London’s The Vinyl Factory. The first time I saw Childers was at The Speakeasy at a March 1977 concert by his […]
Lovely to see the gorgeous Eve Ferret out and about this spring with a series of live dates to celebrate the long-overdue release of her first album. I fell under Eve’s spell in the summer of 1978, witnessing performances at Covent Garden’s pre-New Romantic Blitz club with her-then partner James “Biddie” Biddlecombe. More recently we […]
I’m assembling materials for Rethink/Re-Entry, the long-overdue monograph of the great British artist Derek Boshier I am currently editing. The book takes its title from the early Boshier painting which inspired rock’s ultimate art-directed star Bryan Ferry to choose the name Remake/Remodel for the first track on Roxy Music’s game-changing debut LP.
Today the National Portrait Gallery unveiled Imaginary Portraits, a selection of works by artist Derek Boshier, who is the subject of a monograph I am editing. Prominent are two studies of David Bowie; an oil-on-canvas painting executed in New York in 1980 while Bowie was rehearsing for his role in Bernard Pomerance’s play The Elephant […]
I’m making a presentation on Bowie’s visual style and in particular his relationship with clothing designers as part of the V&A’s Sound & Vision event today. Among those I’m referencing will be the theatrical costume designer Peter J. Hall, who was commissioned to create the stagewear for the 1983 Serious Moonlight tour. I wrote about […]
Tonight I am hosting an event at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum: an ‘in conversation’ with Boy George about the importance and influence of popular culture’s greatest manipulator of visual identity, David Bowie.