On Painting 1946 and the Magic of Art: The Malcolm McLaren Birthday Post (2024)

 

Francis Bacon: Painting 1946 (1946)

Oil on linen (78 x 52 in)

I. 

 

On this day, in 1946, Malcolm McLaren was born and I'd like to mark the event by reproducing above a typically brutal and disturbing work painted by Francis Bacon in this year, when the horrors of the Second World War were evidently still haunting his unconscious. 

 

 

II. 

 

McLaren was an admirer of Bacon's and I know they met on at least one occasion, when, having previously been introduced by the London art dealer Robert Fraser [1], they viewed the Manet exhibition together at the National Gallery in 1983. 

 

According to Malcolm, Bacon helped him understand that truly great artists are more than mere painters; they are also alchemists, who can transform ordinary objects and base materials into something magical [2]. 

 

 

III.

 

Painting 1946 was initially sold to the dealer and gallerist Erica Brausen in the autumn of that year, for £200 (Bacon used the proceeds to escape London for Monte Carlo). Two years later, Alfred Barr purchased the work on behalf of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It has remained there ever since and is now too fragile to be exhibited elsewhere.

 

It's a great picture; one which even Bacon - who could be highly critical of his own work - was always proud. 

 

And, if only for the date of its composition, I think it makes a suitable image by which to remember McLaren on what would have been his 78th birthday [3].      

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Robert Fraser - aka Groovy Bob - was a key figure on the London cultural scene in the Swinging Sixties and his Duke Street gallery became a focal point for contemporary art in the UK, helping to promote the work of many exciting new British and American artists, including Peter Blake, Bridget Riley, Richard Hamilton, and Gilbert & George. Many beautiful people - including writers, actors, and musicians - frequented Fraser's gallery and partied at his flat in Mayfair and, as a young art student, McLaren also visited exhibitions staged by Fraser, whom he later described as a major icon. 

      In 1983, Fraser opened a new gallery and was influential in promoting the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. Sadly, however, he died from AIDS-related illnesses in January 1986. Those readers interested in knowing more should see Harriet Vyner's biography; Groovy Bob: The Life and Times of Robert Fraser (HENI Publishing, 2016); originally published by Faber & Faber (1999).   

 

[2] See Paul Gorman's The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, p. 480, where he mentions Mclaren's recollection of this visit to the National Gallery accompanied by Francis Bacon.

 

[3] McLaren died on 8 April, 2010, having beeen diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma in October 2009. 

Young Flesh Required: Notes on Punk and Paedophilia

A banned promotional image for The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle

Designed by Jamie Reid (1979)

I. Cash from Chaos

Some of Jamie Reid's most provocative images produced during the Sex Pistols period came after the group itself fronted by singer Johnny Rotten had imploded and McLaren's management company, Glitterbest, had passed into the hands of the receivers.    

This includes, for example, the above artwork designed to promote the fabulously ambitious project known as The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle; a project which set out to paradoxically mythologise and demythologise the Sex Pistols whilst also exposing the greed, cynicism and corruption at the heart of a music industry that ruthlessly exploits young talent as well as the loyalty of fans.  

Based on the design of the American Express credit card,* the Sex Pistols are identified as being the Artist (or Prostitute). Of course, anyone's name could be inserted here, providing they have what it takes to generate income for the Record Company (or Pimp), which controls every aspect of the Artist's career and uses the monies earned to increase their power and diversify their business (perhaps even starting their own airline).

The Swindle, ultimately, is nothing other than the operation of the free market itself; for what's more anarchic (and amoral) than the unrestricted flows of capital? We all get cash from chaos - but particularly those who have resolved all values into commercial value and found a way to co-opt even the most radical and revolutionary of forces.

The relationship between punk and capitalism is an interesting one: I'd like to think that the former is a genuinely decoded flow of desire and not ultimately identical with capitalism's own game of deterritorialization. Unfortunately, I'm not entirely convinced of this; too many punks - like too many hippies before them - went on to make too much money and establish successful (and seemingly interminable) careers.


II. Servicing the Fetishes of the Pop World  

Jamie Reid's punk Amex card isn't simply making a point about the exploitative nature of the music business from a financial perspective, however. It also hints - in fact, it explicitly suggests with its language of pimping and prostitution - that there's also a sleazy, sexually abusive game being played by those in positions of power (including rock stars, DJs, and record company executives).

At the time, I don't remember anyone being particularly concerned about this; there was the same jokey, nudge-nudge, wink-wink attitude to paedophilia as there was to rape. Either that, or people simply turned a blind eye to what was going on. It's precisely this aspect, however, that resonates most strongly with many people today in the era of the #MeToo movement and Time's Up campaign.

Thus, when watching The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle now, one of the more unpleasant and truly shocking scenes takes place at a brothel based at the Cambridge Rapist Hotel, where Steve Jones encounters a record boss awaiting trial on a child molesting charge. Whether this was intended to alert people to the perverse underbelly of the entertainment industry, or simply amuse viewers of the film, is debatable.

It's worth noting, however, that McLaren was not adverse to exploiting young flesh himself in order to create a stir; from his use of a picture of a naked boy posing with a cigarette on an early t-shirt design, to his attempts to embroil members of Bow Wow Wow - including their 14-year-old singer, Annabella Lwin - in a sex scandal, via a photographic recreation of Manet's Le déjeuner sur l’herbe. 

In the end, no one is innocent ...


Notes

Perhaps not surprisingly, American Express were not best pleased with Reid's artwork and claimed copyright infringement. An injunction was issued and the graphic immediately withdrawn by Virgin.

For those who are interested, the writer Paul Gorman provides more details of the smoking boy t-shirt designed by McLaren on his very wonderful blog devoted to all aspects of visual culture: click here. 

See: The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, dir. Julien Temple (1980): click here to view the trailer.  

Why I Love Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (1863)

Édouard Manet: Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (1863) 
Oil on canvas, 208 x 264.5 cm

Manet's controversial picnic scene, known in English as Lunch on the Grass, might seem fairly innocuous to a modern viewer, despite the nudity of the central female figure and scantily-clad bather in the background - and despite the high regard in which it's held by art-loving members of the dogging and CMNF communities respectively.

But, back in the day, it sparked outrage in the art world, breaking with academic convention in style, in subject matter, and in the size of the canvas. It also provoked a huge public scandal; not only was there a woman in the nip besides two fully-clothed men, but they appeared to be fairly indifferent to the fact - more concerned with their own conversation and appearance, like a couple of queers. What's more, she, the brazen hussy, is gazing directly at the viewer, breaking the fourth wall with a coquettish smile that is as knowing as it is obscene.       

Surprisingly, for such a famous work, there's still a good deal we don't know for certain about the painting; including, for example, when Manet first began the canvas, how he originally got the idea and what sort of preparatory work he carried out. Having said that, we do know that the female nude was Victorine Meurent, a famous model and accomplished artist in her own right, whom Manet loved to paint (she it was who sat for another of his notorious canvases belonging to this period, Olympia).

And we do know that Manet was playfully reworking an Old Master's depiction of a Greek mythological scene. For the disposition of the main figures is derived from Marcantonio Raimondi's celebrated engraving The Judgement of Paris (c. 1515), after a drawing by Raphael; an artist revered by the conservative members of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, so Manet's très moderne take on this Renaissance treasure was bound to ruffle feathers. In fact, some members were said to be apoplectic, though others found the canvas simply laughable.

Émile Zola, however, thought it to be Manet's greatest work. So too did many other 19th and 20th century artists, including Picasso, who was so obsessed by Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe that he completed 27 paintings and 140 drawings inspired by it.

Punk impresario Malcolm McLaren also liked it so much that, when managing Bow Wow Wow, he commissioned the photographer Andy Earl to recreate the picture with members of the band, including 14-year-old Annabella Lwin taking on the Victorine Meurent role - much to the outrage of her mother, who called in Scotland Yard and had the image removed from the sleeve of the group's 1981 album See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang Yeah, City All Over! Go Ape Crazy! 

Photo of Bow Wow Wow by Andy Earl 

49 x 38.5 cm colour print (1983) 

Given to the National Portrait Gallery by Andy Earl (1999) 

It's amusing to think that, almost 120 years after being rejected by the Salon, Lunch on the Grass could still upset the elderly authorities and those D. H. Lawrence terms censor-morons; i.e. individuals who attempt to circumscribe the pornographic imagination.

After the Orgy: Rise of the Herbivores

Édouard Manet: Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (1862-3)* 

When asked, twenty-five years ago, to characterize the present, Baudrillard described it as after the orgy. It was then and remains now a brilliant characterization.**  

Although the orgy in question doesn't refer merely to a feast of the flesh, but, more widely, to modernity's explosive liberation in every sphere, this obviously includes a sexual component and it's this that I wish to comment on here, with reference to what are known in Japan as the herbivore men. 

The problem with revolutions, says Baudrillard, is that they never turn out as expected or as hoped - and this includes the so-called sexual revolution. By freeing sex from its containment within bodies and their organs and thereby allowing it to enter into a state of pure circulation and incessant commutation, it has become increasingly subject to indeterminacy and virtual indifference (in all senses of the word).  

Thus, rather than the promised utopia dreamed of by the priests of love who thought they could fuck their way into the future, we witness a gradual fading away of sexual beings, of men and women, of what we had mistakenly believed to be natural desire, and even of biological function. And we end up with asexual beings and celibate grass-eaters, who have little or no interest in dating, marrying, and reproducing (if pushed, they might express an interest in cloning or parthenogenesis).

And so to the land of the rising sun ...      

Sōshoku danshi is a term coined by the writer Maki Fukasawa to describe those young men who express no wish for a conventional love life, or, indeed, to struggle in the macho world of business. Recent surveys conducted amongst single Japanese males in their twenties and thirties found that two-thirds were happy to be considered herbivores (a figure large enough to seriously concern a government which was already worried about falling birth rates).

According to Fukasawa, such men are not entirely sexless, but they have a non-assertive and casual attitude towards pleasures of the flesh; many choose to have exclusively on-line relations, for example, or to masturbate with pornography; others enjoy the company of actual women, but prefer loving friendships that are free from sexual imperatives and conjugal duties.

Of course, this trend is observable in many advanced societies and is not exclusively a Japanese phenomenon; who hasn't inwardly groaned on occasion with displeasure and boredom at the thought of having to groan with sexual pleasure and excitement; what man (or woman for that matter) hasn't resented the pressure to perform and conform to gender stereotypes?

After the orgy, one just wants to chat over coffee, go for a stroll in the park, order a salad, or roll over and sleep ...

Notes

* For me, Manet's picture provides evidence that there have always been young dandies more interested in discussing fashion and philosophy, oblivious to the appeal of naked female flesh. Arguably, the rather bored young woman peers out of the canvas in the hope of catching the eye of a carnivore.   

** See: Jean Baudrillard, 'After the Orgy', in The Transparency of Evil, trans. James Benedict, (Verso, 1993). 

This post was suggested by Katxu, to whom I'm grateful.