Reflections on Two Paintings by Malcolm McLaren

 

Two Paintings by Malcolm McLaren (1969):

Fig. 1: 14 Pink Figures On Moving Sea Of Green  

Fig. 2: I Will Be So Bad 

 (Photos: Barry Martin / Malcolm McLaren Estate) [1]

 

"I learnt all my politics and understanding of the world through the history of art."

 

 

I. 

 

Before revolutionising the worlds of fashion and music, a teenaged Malcolm McLaren had ambitions of becoming a painter and he spent many years as an art student in London, attending several different schools, beginning with St Martin's and ending with Goldsmiths, where, in 1969, at the end of his first year, he was required to show some work. 

 

Two of the canvases McLaren produced at this time, then aged 23, I find particularly intriguing ...

 

 

II. 

 

The first consists of fourteen pale pink figures against a chaotic-looking pale green background. The figures standing and holding hands in a circle look like a chain of paper cut-outs, whilst the figures lying on the ground look like corpses and, when questioned on the work, McLaren confirmed the latter's status as such to his tutor Barry Martin [2].

 

If, initially, it might be imagined that McLaren is critiquing bougeois liberalism's fatally mistaken belief that individuals can thrive and prosper when disconnected from wider society, such an interpretation is dramatically overturned when we learn that the standing figures are rejoicing in the death of the others. 

 

The picture, therefore, is more likely intended to illustrate how non-conforming individuals often fall victim to a moral majority who fear their otherness and resent their refusal to join hands.    

III.

 

The second canvas consists of a solitary and anonymous black figure against a background upon which the refrain I will be so bad is repeated (and inverted), as if McLaren is mocking the school teachers who once made him stand in the corner or write I will behave over and over on a blackboard when placed in detention. 

 

I don't, therefore, interpret the latter painting as a cry for help or an expression of the artist's alienation. It is, rather, a humorous act of revenge on those who tried to curtail his anarchic and irresponsible desire to cause trouble informed by the belief that it's better to be bad than good, because being good is boring [3].     

  

      

IV.

 

It's a shame that neither of these canvases survived, though I suppose we should be grateful that Barry Martin took and kept photographs of them [4]. 

 

I know a lot of people dislike McLaren and will, for this reason, dismiss or deride the two works shown here. However, whether they like to admit it or not - and as Martin recognised at the time - they're really rather fine ... [5]  

 

Notes

 

[1] Images via Paul Gorman's blog. To read his piece on McLaren's 1969 Goldsmith paintings click here.

 

[2] See Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, (Constable, 2020), p. 103. 

[3] According to McLaren, this was something his grandmother instilled into him from a very young age. See p. 23 of Gorman's biography, op.cit. 

[4] All McLaren's work from this period was destroyed (by his own hand), after he rejected the limitations imposed by traditional art forms, such as painting. Nevertheless, he maintained a life-long relationship with the visual arts and deserves to be considered a significant British artist.     

[5] Martin is quoted by Paul Gorman as saying "'Malcolm was a troublesome student but a talented painter who could have made a name for himself in the art world.'" See The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, p. 104.