The Talented Malcolm McLaren and the Visionary Andy Warhol

Image posted on Instagram by Young Kim 

(12 Jan 2026) @youngkim.xyz

 

 

I.

 

It's sixteen years ago this coming April that Malcolm McLaren died [1] ... and it's ten years ago this coming May that the ICA hosted an event in memoriam [2]. 

 

Essentially, the argument advanced by Young Kim and other speakers was that Malcolm was a uniquely gifted individual and that not only did he exert a seminal influence on fashion, music, and the arts during his lifetime, but that his ghost continues to haunt contemporary practice [3].    

 

Indeed, the claim was made that McLaren is England's answer to Andy Warhol ...  

 

 

II. 

 

Today, on the occasion of what would have been his 80th birthday, I'd like to endorse the above argument, agreeing that there needs to be a fundamental reappraisal of McLaren's legacy and that the (now boring) idea that he was a mere charlatan or talentless swindler, needs to be dispelled once and for all. 

 

For this image of him - which, admittedly, he is largely responsible for inventing [3] - obscures his significance as an artist and sells short his multidisciplinary body of work predicated on the radical manipulation of media and the staging of situations.

 

Having said that, the claim that McLaren was England's Warhol is, whilst bold and interesting, an imperfect analogy. 

 

For whilst there are certain similarities and points of comparison - both postioned themselves as creative directors rather than traditional artists and both understood how art was absolutely tied to commerce and commodification - Warhol and McLaren were rooted in very different cultures and I think their aesthetic and world view was, in key respects, disparate. 

 

I also suspect that (if pushed) McLaren himself would concede from beyond the grave that Warhol, who had left an indelible impression on him as a teenager in the early 1960s, was a far more profound artist, full of darkness.

 

Ultimately, whilst Malcolm hit targets no one else could hit, Warhol hit a target no one else could envision ... [5]      

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Malcolm McLaren, born 22 January, 1946, died of peritoneal mesothelioma in a Swiss hospital on 8 April 2010, aged 64.  

 

[2] The two-day ICA event consisted of The Legacy of Malcolm McLaren: The Clothes (20 May 2016), followed by The Legacy of Malcolm McLaren: The Art (21 May 2016).

      The first was a panel discussion chaired by McLaren's long-term partner (and heir to his Estate) Young Kim, was meant to feature writer Paul Gorman, fashion designer Kim Jones, and magazine editor Ben Reardon, and address Malcolm's life-long obsession with clothes and his frequent forays into fashion design. Unfortunately, Jones and Reardon couldn't attend the event, so Gorman persuaded Simon Withers onto the stage to contribute, which he did with great success. Click here for more details.  

      The latter was a panel discussion between ICA Executive Director Gregor Muir, Young Kim, author Michael Bracewell, and curator Andrew Wilson, followed by a screening of McLaren's 86 minute film Shallow 1-21 (2008). Click here for more details.  

 

[3] Supporters of McLaren (like me) will point to the fact that via his conceptual boutiques operated in partnership with Vivienne Westwood, McLaren left his sartorial signature on the fashion world and effectively invented the visual language of punk; that with the release of his pioneering first solo album, Duck Rock (1983), McLaren introduced hip-hop and world music to a British audience; and that the moving-image works made at the end of his career saw a fascinating return to his art-school roots, utilising a distinctive concept of musical paintings.  

 

[4] Mclaren is largely responsible for his own negative reputation due to the role he adopted in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (dir. Julien Temple, 1980). As he himself later confessed, he thought everybody would understand it was meant to be comical and self-mocking, but, unfortunately, people took it seriously: 'I was too good an actor'.  

 

[5] I'm paraphrasing Schopenhauer here who makes this distinction when discussing talent contra genius in Vol. 2, Ch. 31 of The World as Will and Representation (Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 393-415. 

      According to Schopenhauer, whilst a talented individual thinks faster and more accurately than most people; the person of genius sees a different world, although only insofar as they look more deeply into this world. 

 

 

 Thanks to Paul Gorman for providing information on the ICA event. 

 

 

Am I a Genius or an Insect?

 

If you constantly think you are a genius or an insect, 

you will eventually become a genius or an insect ... [1]  

 

 

I.

 

In a sense, torpedo the ark means that nothing is off limits and I would like to think that I have the necessary courage required to address all questions candidly, both as a lover of poppies and as one who knows the secret of their redness [2].   

 

What does that mean? 

 

It means that as a blogger who playfully positions himself midway between poet and philosopher, I hope to do more than merely reinforce the dogma (and doxa) of the present, even if that means going largely unread by one's own age and brings little or no advantage. 

 

 

II.

 

Schopenhauer would say this makes me a genius; i.e., one motivated not by hopes of fame, fortune, or even pleasure - for the effort involved in constantly producing and publishing posts almost always outweighs the satisfaction - but by an instinct that impels creative expression, even when living in less than ideal circumstances (exile, isolation, poverty, etc.) [3]. 

 

And, who knows, peut-être que je suis une sorte de génie! 

 

I certainly blog without regard for reward, applause, or sympathy and live more in the past and future, neglectful of my own well-being in the actual present. Although this perhaps makes me merely a kind of human insect who "desposits its eggs where it knows they will one day find life and nourishment, and dies contented" [4].  

  

 

Notes

 

[1] This is a modified quote attributed to the Spanish surrealist Salvador Dalí. The close up picture of a longhorn beetle (on a modified red background) is by the Indonesian wildlife photographer Yudy Sauw. For more of his images, see The Guardian (21 July 2014): click here.  

 

[2] See the post entitled 'Little Hell Flames' (29 May 2021): click here. 

      I'm thinking also of something that Schopenhauer wrote: "The poet can be compared with one who presents flowers, the philosopher with one who presents their essence." See Essays and Aphorisms, selected and trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Penguin Books, 1970), p. 118.  

 

[2] See Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms ... pp. 131-32.   

 

[3] Ibid. p. 132. 

 

 

In Sickness and in Greater Health (Or Something I Need to Get Off My Chest)

First I had a flu-like virus that left me with a dry ticklish cough and a dry stuffy nose. This mutated into a chest infection, for which I was prescribed anti-biotics. This left my bronchial system so inflamed and hypersensitive, that it triggered some form of asthmatic reaction. 

So now I've been told to suck on an inhaler and puff away up to four times a day, like a real fucking invalid. Masculine pride (or what women often term stubborn stupidity) dictates that I ignore medical advice. But a tight chest and inability to breathe properly gradually erodes all virtue; indeed, what else is sickness ultimately other than a loss of dignity?  

On a positive note, the dry ticklish cough has gone. Unfortunately, the nasal congestion continues; this despite repeatedly shoving a Vicks inhaler up my nose. If Nietzsche is right and human genius resides in the nostrils, then I've subjected my creative intelligence to a huge quantity of menthol, camphor and Siberian pine needle oil during the last weeks.

Hopefully, this might make my thinking clear and cool (though I doubt it). What it has done is make me much more sympathetic to D. H. Lawrence and Gilles Deleuze who suffered terribly with their chests and often experienced breathing difficulties (not that I'm equating my condition with theirs, both of whom had tuberculosis).        

It's no wonder that both authors seemed to be so obsessed with fresh air and subscribed to a vitalist philosophy built upon the Nietzschean notion of die große Gesundheit - "a new health, stronger, more seasoned, tougher, more audacious, and gayer than any previous health".

This sounds nice. But it's important to know that such a health grows out of sickness and is in fact an affirmation of the latter.  

See: Nietzsche, The Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufmann, (Vintage Books, 1974), Section 382. 

Note: Lawrence eventually coughed and spat his way out of this mortal life on 2 March, 1930, aged just 44. Deleuze committed suicide on 4 November 1995 after his chronic respiratory condition(s) became increasingly severe and even writing became difficult.  

In Defence of the Great White Male

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, 

Great White Male and one of the 

Founders of King's College London (1829) 

As I'm not a Doctor Who fan, the fact that the 13th actor chosen to play the role of the irritating Time Lord is a woman - Jodie Whittaker - doesn't greatly interest or concern me.

If obliged to comment, then I suppose I can't think of any good reason why he shouldn't regenerate in female form and, indeed, rather like the idea of a transsexual and transracial Doctor to whom all identities remain open as fluid possibilities. Michael Jackson, once rumoured to be in line to star as the Doctor in a big-screen version of the BBC TV drama, would have been ideally cast.

Most of the criticism aimed at Ms. Whittaker from fans of the show seems to be rooted in tedious, rather old-fashioned sexism and deeply unpleasant misogyny. Unfortunately, they'll just have to get used to the fact that as times change, so too do fictional characters evolve and sometimes radically transform. Indeed, readers of Marvel comics have long become accustomed to this phenomenon ...

Thus, for example, following the death of pale-faced Peter Parker, Spiderman became the superhero identity of Miles Morales, a young man of Afro-Hispanic origin. There's also a black Captain America (Isiah Bradley) and a totally awesome new Hulk who happens to be Korean (Amadeus Cho). In addition, Ms. Marvel is now no longer busty, blonde-haired Carol Danvers; she is, rather, Kamala Khan, a teenage Muslim of Pakistani origin. Oh, and Thor, the god of thunder, is now a woman too - just like Doctor Who! 

Again, this push for greater diversity - driven by the wish to establish a new and broader fanbase in order to sell more comics and thus make more money, rather than political correctness - doesn't really trouble me. In fact, if anything, I find it mildly amusing.

But what does concern me, however, is when the attempt to denigrate all that is male and pale as stale, isn't being played out in the queer world of sci-fi and superheroes, but within academia ...

Thus, the decision by King's College London to replace portraits of its founding fathers with a wall of diversity in order that today's student body doesn't feel intimidated, is, I think, deeply depressing and disappointing.      

For whilst it's one thing for contemporary culture to reflect the Volkerchaos of modern British society, it's quite another thing to try and launder history or erase the past. This is not just foolish, it's also slightly sinister - not to mention patronising towards those it's trying to protect from the inconvenient truth that whilst blacks have soul and women their intuition, only great white males have genius ...