Paul Gorman

Jean-Michel Basquiat

Robert Fraser’s Groovy Arts Club Band: Exhibition and limited edition double album in the New Year

      Next month British artists David Stephenson and Josh Stapleton’s music project Robert Fraser’s Groovy Arts Club Band releases a limited edition double vinyl album to coincide with the opening of the exhibition of the same name at London gallery Gazelli Art House.

      The show, curated by Stephenson and Gazelli’s Mila Askarova, celebrates the life and work of the art dealer Robert Fraser, the “Groovy Bob” of pop culture legend who represented cutting edge artists from the 1960s to the 80s.

      Housed in a handsome gatefold sleeve designed by the great British artist Derek Boshier, the limited edition record features tracks dedicated not just to Fraser but also the constellation of artists in his firmament, including Boshier himself (on the track An Englishman in LA), Jean-Michel Basquiat (Samo), Brian Clarke (Dangerous Visions Of Brian Clark), Keith Haring (Keith Haring’s Pop Shop) and Ed Ruscha (I Want To Hang Out With Ed Ruscha).

      Robert Fraser’s Groovy Arts Club Band is available from January 10 from Gazelli Art House. Order copies here. 

      The exhibition runs from January 11 to February 23, 2019. Details here.

      Harriet Vyner’s must-read biography of Fraser is available here.

      A Strong Sweet Smell Of Incense: Derek Boshier at the Robert Fraser show

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      //Sam Spade, Derek Boshier, 1966, on the back wall of this recreation of the office at Robert Fraser Gallery, Duke Street, London W1//

      Derek Boshier’s 1966 work Sam Spade is given prominence in A Strong Sweet Smell Of Incense, the exhibition dedicated to the connoisseurship of the late art dealer Robert Fraser.

      Boshier was a client until he foreswore painting for a decade or more in 1968. This was a particularly difficult period for Fraser, who was jailed over the infamous Redlands drug bust at Rolling Stone Keith Richards’ house the previous year.

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      //From Pace’s exhibition guide. The work in the background looks to be another of Boshier’s from the Sam Spade period//

      Boshier has recounted how he became so frustrated over Fraser’s unwillingness to pass on payments in the 60s that he and his friend, the poet Christopher Logue, once broke into the Duke Street gallery and retrieved works Fraser had refused to release in lieu.

      Continue reading A Strong Sweet Smell Of Incense: Derek Boshier at the Robert Fraser show

      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.

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