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This sleeve for Joseph Beuys’ 1982 single is featured in Son Of Vulgar, the latest “scratch” catalogue from Maggs Bros’ counterculture department.
With 24 lots, it’s a typically eclectic affair.
Here is a selection, from a Malcolm McLaren promotional brochure for Bow Wow Wow and a Roxy Club membership card through US transgender photography of the early 20th Century to the LAPD’s report on the Symbionese Liberation Front and a book by Japanese artist Tadanori Yokoo:
NAME: Nicholas Abrahams
RESIDES: London
OCCUPATION: Film-maker
Nick Abrahams’ work includes promos for Stereolab, Add (N) To X and sigur rós. More recently he collaborated with Jeremy Deller on the fascinating exposition of fan’s desires, The Posters Came From The Walls.
Among Abrahams’ current projects is Jayne County biopic Man Enough To Be A Woman. Judging from the rushes shown last year, this will be a doozy.
Last autumn Abrahams created the 30-minute Stooges film Doghouse. The installation at Tatty Devine included a portrait of our hound Rita.
Abrahams cuts quite a dash in any company; as I say below, I admire his ability to combine the edgy with the traditional without pretension.
Here he answers the Blokes Of Britain questionnaire, covering ground from Tiny Tim to gold teeth by way of Cordings, Trickers, Viv Stanshall and William Burroughs. Oh, and not to forget Edward Gorey’s fur coats, Joseph Beuys’ felt suits and Nick’s own creation: The Denton Welch safety bib.
How would you describe your sartorial style?
My girlfriend says I look like a straight bear (IE: a chubby gay man with beard).
Aphasic Disturbance, the current show at CHELSEA space, is curator Stephen Bury’s response to “Two types of language and two types of aphasic disturbance”, the 1956 essay by the linguist/literary theorist Roman Jakobson on manifestations of aphasia (the loss of power of expression through speech).
And Bury – now Andrew W. Mellon chief librarian of New York’s Frick Art Reference Library – uses artists’ books and multiples in the main from the collections he built when he was at Chelsea College of Art & Design’s library between 1978 and 2000.