Piss Artists 1: Andy Warhol (Piss and Oxidation Paintings)

Cover of the exhibition catalogue 

Gallerie Daniel Blau (Munich)

6 March - 13 May 1998

 

 

I. 

 

For most British people, a piss artist is one who likes to get drunk, act the fool, produce shoddy work and generally waste time. In other words, one who gets pissed a little too often; pisses around a little too much; and pisses people off more than is deemed acceptable. 

 

However, for some of us the term also triggers thoughts of Warhol, Chadwick and Serrano and here I would like to discuss a urine-stained series of works by the first of these three piss artists, Andy Warhol ...    


II.

 

In June 1979, none other than American pop artist Andy Warhol walked into 430 King's Road and purchased one of the newly designed T-shirts on sale featuring "a monochrome 1952 photographic portrait of a smiling Marilyn Monroe, with streams of urine spurting from red phalluses on the sleeves and pooling to form the words 'Piss Marilyn' across her face" [1].

 

One assumes that Warhol was amused by this punk tribute to his work by McLaren and Westwood, referencing as it did not only his famous images of the tragic Hollywood star, but also his most recent works which used urine as an artistic medium.

 

 

III. 

 

Warhol's works incorporating urine are divided into two separate categories in the Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné: (i) Oxidation Paintings and (ii) Piss Paintings, although both categories of work were produced in the same period (1977-1978) [2].  

 

Whilst the latter are simply primed canvases stained with urine, the former are canvases that have first been prepared with a metallic base, such as copper or gold-coloured paint, giving a far more beautiful (shimmering) effect after an assistant at the Factory has pissed on them at Warhol's direction, or once urine has been poured from a sample bottle by the artist himself.  

   

It's possible that Warhol was, on the one hand, giving a camp and gently mocking critique of Jackson Pollock [3] and the abstract expressionists who loved to splash and drip paint on to canvases with exaggerated machismo, whilst, on the other hand, producing work rooted in the gay club scene, where golden showering was almost de rigeur [4].

 

Either way, the piss and oxidation paintings represent a genuine break from his previous stuff which relyed on the transference of photographic images to canvas via silkscreening [5]. 

 

Art often involves far more hardwork - and far more suffering - than many people realise or wish to acknowledge, but it's nice to be reminded by Warhol that we can produce provocative works that rely upon bodily fluids other than blood, sweat and tears ...    

 

Notes

[1] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 427. 

      The shop at 430 King's Road was still operating as Seditionaries at this time. Warhol's visit to the store was noted in an entry dated 23 June 1979 in The Andy Warhol Diaries, ed. Pat Hackett (Warner Books, 1989). One of the Piss Marilyn shirts (sans sleeves) is in the Met Museum's Costume Institute collection: click here.

[2] Searching for a new approach via which he might reaffirm his radical credentials as an artist and counter the accusation that he was now merely a society portraitist, Warhol began working not only on his piss and oxidation paintings, but also a series of Cum Paintings for which volunteers agreed to ejaculate on to canvases. As seminal as the latter works may be, here I will only discuss the canvases that have been pissed on.  

 

[3] I don't believe Warhol was a fan of Pollock's work, but he may have enjoyed some of the stories that circulated about the latter; including, for example, that he would sometimes urinate on a canvas before giving it to a client he didn't like and allegedly pissed in Peggy Guggenheim's fireplace when she requested he reduce the size of a mural he was producing for her.

[4] Warhol's homosexuality - and, at times, abstract sexuality - certainly shaped his work and he would, of course have seen how a younger generation of artists, such as Robert Mapplethorpe, weren't shy in breaking boundaries and documenting what was happening in the gay bars, underground clubs, and bathhouses at that time.   

 

[5] Of course, in Warhol's 1982 portrait of Jean-Michel Basquiat, we get the best of both worlds. After taking some Polaroids of the much younger artist, Warhol then silkscreened an image of Basquiat's face on to a canvas coated with copper paint, before then pissed on it and allowing the uric acid to discolour the metal, creating pretty patterns of rust, black and green. It's the only known portrait exceuted by Warhol in the oxidation style and sold in 2021, at Christie's New York, for $40 million.   

 

 

To read the second post in this series - on Helen Chadwick's Piss Flowers (1992) - please click here. 

 

To read the third post in this series - on Andres Serrano's Piss Christ (1987) - please click here.

But Malcolm, They'll Not Be Able to Find It ...

Fig. 1: Sex Pistols: Anarchy in the U.K. (EMI, 1976)  

Fig. 2: Kazimir Malevich: Black Square (1915) 

 

 

I.

 

It's hard to resist loving a paper that explores the links between punk, nihilism, politics and the arts, such as the one delivered by Ian Trowell at the Torn Edges symposium at the London College of Communication a few days ago [1].

 

Kazimir Malevich and Malcolm McLaren; Suprematism, Situationism, and the Sex Pistols - what's not to love? 

 

I don't want to say it was the best presentation on the day, but it was probably the one I enjoyed the most - and if Trowell had only thought to entitle his work 'Don't Be (Black) Square Be There', I would've loved it (and him) even more [2].

 

 

II.

 

Perhaps unsurprisingly to torpedophiles, the aspect of the talk that most excited concerned the plain black sleeve that 'Anarchy in the U.K.' - the Sex Pistols' debut single - was originally issued in on 26 November, 1976. 

I figure that McLaren would be more than familiar with Malevich's suprematist masterpiece painted sixty years earlier, though don't know if this directly inspired the 'Anarchy' packaging, or if, as Paul Gorman says, the insistence on such a sleeve was simply in line with McLaren's own aesthetic, as seen in his portraits of the 1960s and the clothes designs produced with Vivienne Westwood for Sex [3]. 

 

Either way, it was a great idea for a sleeve; one that not only captures the anarcho-nihilism of the band, but affirms the colour with the greatest symbolic resonance and meaning. 

 

And when EMI executives complained that an all black sleeve with no identifying information would make it extremely difficult for fans to find it in the record stores, Malcolm smiled and said: I don't want them to find it ... [4]

 

Notes

 

[1] Ian Trowell is an independent researcher and author exploring themes of popular culture and ideas around myth and memory. His presentation at Torn Edges was entiled '"Anarchy in the UK', 'Black Square', and Pop Nihilism: Exploring the Links between Punk, Nihilism, Suprematism and Situationism". 'Further details of this event and of the other speakers can be found here. Trowell's recently published book - Throbbing Gristle: An Endless Discontent (Intellect Books, 2023) - can be purchased here.

 

[2] The fact that he was wearing an Adam and the Ants T-shirt on the day makes it even more surprising to me that Trowell didn't think of this title. Still, never mind - the presentation was all good clean fun (whatever that means).*  

[3] See Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 331. Gorman goes on to say that McLaren was also thinking of the infamous 'black page' in Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy (1759-67).

 

[4] There were only a couple of thousand copies of 'Anarchy in the U.K.' issued in the black sleeve; after that, it was sold in the standard EMI sleeve with a hole in the middle so the label information could easily be read. 

      The record reached number 38 in the official UK Singles Chart, before being withdrawn by EMI following the Bill Grundy Incident (1 Dec 1976). The Sex Pistols were eventually fired from EMI on 6 January 1977, but they kept their £40,000 advance and had the last laugh when they included the track E.M.I. on Never Mind the Bollocks (Virgin Records, 1977). 

      To watch the band perform the single 'Anarchy in the U.K.' on the BBC's early evening current affairs show Nationwide (recorded 11 Nov 1976 and broadcast the following day), click here.

 

  

* I'm referring here - for those who don't know - to a track by Adam and the Ants entitled 'Don't Be Square (Be There)', from the album Kings of the Wild Frontier (CBS Records, 1980): click here. You may not like it now, but you will ... 

André Masson and the Sex Pistols

The Surrealist and the Sex Pistol:

 André Masson and Malcolm McLaren

Photos by Man Ray (c. 1930) and Joe Stevens (1976)

 

 

I. 

 

When asked shortly before his death: Which living artist do you most admire? 

 

Malcolm McLaren answered: 

 

"When I was 18, I studied for three months under the automatist painter André Masson in France. Every day I would buy him tomatoes, a baguette and a bottle of côtes du rhône, but he never spoke. On my last day he bought me a drink and wished me well. He's dead now, but I remain haunted by him." [1]

 

I don't know how true that is, but it's an amusing story [2] and forms an interesting connection with an artist whose relation to surrealism is much discussed, but whose influence on punk is - as far as I know - rarely mentioned. 

 

 

II.

 

My knowledge of Masson is mostly limited to the period when he worked on the journal founded by Georges Bataille - Acéphale (1936-39). 

 

His cover design for the first issue featuring an iconic headless figure with stars for nipples and a skull where his sexual organ should be, has resonated with me ever since I first saw it in the mid-1990s and I'm disappointed that Malcolm didn't ask Jamie or Vivienne to adapt this pagan image on a design for the Sex Pistols.

 

To identify as an anti-Christ is an important start. But equally important is to declare oneself in opposition to the ideal figure of the Vitruvian Man embodying all that is Good, True, and Beautiful - and to repeat after Bataille: "Secrètement ou non, il est nécessaire de devenir tout autres ou de cesser d'être." [3]

 

Wouldn't that have made a great punk slogan? 

 

I think so.

And I think also that the sacred conspiracy involving Bataille, Masson, Klossowski and others, anticipates McLaren's idea for SEX as a place which might bring together those sovereign individuals who didn't belong to mainstream society or wish to conform to the dictates of fashion, but wanted to violently affirm their singular being above all else.

 

And so, again, I think it a pity that the dark surrealism of Bataille and Masson - which not only set itself in opposition to all forms of fascism but also all forms of humanism, including André Breton's surrealism - wasn't explored (and exploited) by McLaren; especially as, in Sid Vicious, punk rock had discovered its very own Dionysian superstar [4]; someone who, as Malcolm liked to say, never saw a red light and enacted the primordial powers of instinct and irrationality.  

And, like Masson's acéphalic figure, Vicious even had a penchant for carrying a (sacrificial) knife ... [5]

 

Notes

 

[1] Amy Fleming, 'Portrait of the artist: Malcolm McLaren, musician', in The Guardian (10 Aug 2009): click here. 

      This is an interesting short question and answer piece, which also reveals McLaren's favourite film to be David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962). However, I don't think the description of McLaren in the title as a musician is one he would recognise. Sadly, McLaren died eight months after the piece was published (on 8 April 2010). 

 

[2] McLaren's biographer, Paul Gorman, tells us that prior to beginning life as a student at Harrow Technical College & School of Art, Malcolm was "sent by his mother to a summer school in the south of France" and that this (apparently) involved an internship with André Masson and not just enjoying life on the beach at Cannes. 

      See The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 45.

 

[3] I would translate this into English as: "Secretly or not, it is necessary to become wholly other, or cease to be." Often the original French phrase tout autres is translated as 'completely different'.

      The line is from Bataille's essay 'The Sacred Conspiracy', which can be found in Visions of Excess: Selected Writings 1927-1939, ed. Allan Stoekl, trans. Allan Stoekl with Carl R. Lovitt and Donald M. Leslie Jr., (University of Minnesota Press, 1985), p. 179. Masson's Acéphale can also be found in this book, illustrating the essay on p. 180.       

 

[4] See ' Sid Vicious Versus the Crucified' (3 Feb 2024) where I develop this idea: click here.

 

[5] See 'I'll Put a Knife Right in You: Notes on the Case of Sid and Nancy' (30 Dec 2020): click here. 

 

 

This post is dedicated to the Danish art historian and curator Marie Arleth Skov, author of Punk Art History: Artworks from the European No Future Generation (Intellect Books, 2023). Her paper at the Torn Edges symposium held at the London College of Communication (20 March 2024) - 'Berlin Calling: The Dark, Dramatic, and Dazzling Punk Art Praxes of a Divided City' - was inspirational.

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.

 

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. 

From Duck Soup to Duck Rock: On Malcolm McLaren and the Marx Brothers

From Duck Soup to Duck Rock 

(SA/2024)

 

 

I.

 

Although Malcolm McLaren's album Duck Rock [1] was dedicated to his hero Haywire Mac [2], the title is actually a reference to the Marx Brothers' film Duck Soup (1933) and it's no coincidence that McLaren is pictured on the record sleeve wearing a high-cut, double-breasted corduroy jacket based on the one famously worn by Chico [3].

 

 

II. 

 

Duck Soup is a musical black comedy with a satirical edge, directed by Leo McCarey and written by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby (with additional dialogue by Arthur Sheekman and Nat Perrin). Released by Paramount Pictures in November 1933, it stars the four Marx Brothers; Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo (the latter making his final film appearance). 

 

At the time, the film was not particularly well received; neither by audiences nor critics [4]. However, it's now regarded - along with A Night at the Opera (1935) - as the Marx Brothers' finest achievement, although, personally, I must confess I still don't find it funny even if I have come to appreciate the film's cultural and political significance [5].   

 

Apparently, it was McCarey who suggested the film be called Duck Soup, after earlier working titles - including Firecrackers, Grasshoppers, and Oo La La - had all been abandoned. Amusingly, McCarey had previously used Duck Soup for a silent film starring Laurel and Hardy [6]. 

 

A popular slang expression in the US at that time, duck soup referred to something easy to do (just as, conversely, to duck out of something meant to avoid doing it altogether). 

 

 

III.

 

Paul Gorman mentions that McLaren enjoyed watching Marx Brothers' films at a flea-pit cinema in northwest London during his student days [7], so there's a good chance he saw Duck Soup at this time. 

 

And, interestingly, due to the fact that the film ridicules war and nationalism and also pokes fun at censorship, it was popular with many others on the radical left (or associated with the so-called counterculture) in the 1960s [8].

 

But who knows what Malcolm found so appealing about this movie? 

 

If it wasn't the anarchic, anti-authoritarian, and irreverent elements, then perhaps it was simply the ducks swimming in a kettle and quacking away quite happily that most struck a chord with him; one thinks, for example, of the refrain used in 'Buffalo Gals': Duck! Duck! Duck!   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Duck Rock was released in 1983 on Charisma Records. I have previously published posts inspired by several of the tracks on the album, including 'Buffalo Gals' and 'Double Dutch' - click here and here.

[2] Harry K. McClintock (1884 - 1957), aka Haywire Mac, was (among other things) an American singer-songwriter in the hobo-punk tradition. He is arguably best known for his song "The Big Rock Candy Mountains", about which I have written here. 

[3] The Chico Jacket was part of the McLaren/Westwood collection 'Nostalgia of Mud' (A/W 1983): click here, for a post on this if interested. Unlike Chico Marx, McLaren chose to match the jacket with an Appalachian mountain hat, rather than Tyrolean style headgear.  

 

[4] Duck Soup was not a box office failure - in fact, it was the sixth-highest-grossing film of 1933 - but it didn't go down as well as the producers hoped, possibly because audiences found the anarchic buffoonery and cynicism of the Marx Brothers inappropriate at a time of economic and political crisis.

 

[5] Wishing to play down the political nature of the film, Groucho Marx insisted it had no real significance and was simply four Jewish comics trying to get a laugh. Nevertheless, the Brothers were delighted to hear that Mussolini banned the film in Fascist Italy, having found it personally insulting.

 

[6] The Laurel and Hardy silent short comedy Duck Soup (1927), was directed by Fred Guiol, with Leo McCarey acting as a supervising director. The film was considered lost until a print was discovered in 1974. It was remade as Another Fine Mess in 1930 (dir. James Parrott). 

 

[7] See Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, (Constable, 2020), pp. 499-500. 

      The cinema attended by McLaren was the Tolmer, situated just a short walk from Euston Station. It was known as the cheapest cinema in London and attracted what might be described as a mixed audience, including cinephiles, prostitutes, and pensioners. It closed in 1972.

 

[8] Whether that includes Woody Allen and The Beatles is debatable, but both the director of Bananas (1971) and the stars of Help! (dir. Richard Lester, 1965) have admitted they drew insparation from Duck Soup.  

 

 

Bonus: to watch the official Duck Soup (1933) trailer on YouTube, please click here.

Passion Ends in Fashion: Notes on SEX

 

Malcolm outside his notorious boutique 

at 430 King's Road (1976)

 

 

I. 

 

When it comes to the band's name, there's an argument to be made that the Sex Pistols should have been stylised as the SEX Pistols, thereby emphasising the fact that their origins lay in the shop at 430 King's Road and Malcolm's penchant for the kinkier aspects of sexual activity and experience.

 

For Malcolm, as for Foucault, sex is best understood not as a natural function, nor as something to be scientifically studied in order to discover an essential truth about human identity, but, rather, as a sophisticated ars erotica - i.e., a form of pleasure which needs to be creatively cultivated and via which the subject might, in fact, lose (or reinvent) themselves. 

 

And for Malcolm, sex always needed to be thought in relation to two other terms beginning with the letter S: style and subversion (i.e., fashion and politics). Add these three elements together et voila! you produce a pair of bondage trousers.      

 

 

II.

 

McLaren's store at 430 King's Road - run in collaboration with his partner Vivienne Westwood - underwent a series of radical transformations and name changes during its history. 

 

It originally opened (in 1971) as the Teddy boy hang out Let It Rock, before then briefly becoming Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die (1973-74), selling a range of fashions for rockers who preferred to wear black leather jackets and biker boots, rather than drape jackets and blue suede shoes.   

 

In December 1976, the shop was reinvented as Seditionaries and it continued trading under that name until September 1980. As Seditionaries, the boutique adopted a brutalist aesthetic and attitude and stocked the clothes that are now considered the epitome of punk fashion (and sell for thousands of pounds at auction).  

 

In late 1980, the store was relaunched under the name World's End and resembled - as per Malcolm's design instructions - a cross between an 18th-century galleon and the Olde Curiosity Shoppe; punks had been superseded by pirates, Apaches, and buffalo gals. 

 

Each of these shops has a unique fascination and history and each has secured a place in the pop cultural imagination. But, for me, it is Sex that continues to most excite my interest ...

 

 

III.   

 

Quickly bored even with his own projects and uncomfortable with the idea of commercial success, in the spring of 1974, McLaren radically refurbished 430 King's Road and rebranded the shop as Sex: '"That is the one thing that scares the English. They are all afraid of that word.'" [1]

 

The façade included a 4-foot sign of pink foam rubber letters spelling out the new name in capitals. The walls of the interior of the boutique were also lined with pinkish foam rubber and covered with graffitied lines taken from erotic literature and Valerie Solanas's SCUM Manifesto (1967). Latex curtains, red carpeting, and various sexual paraphernalia used decoratively helped to create the sleazy (somewhat intimidating) look of an authentic sex shop.

 

Sex sold fetish and bondage gear supplied by existing specialist labels, as well as designs by McLaren and Westwood which were intended to be provocative rather than seductive. These included T-shirts printed with images of a nude adolescent smoking a cigarette; homosexual cowboys, bare female breasts; and - perhaps most notoriously - a leather mask of the kind worn by the Cambridge Rapist. 

 

Lines taken from pornographic texts were also often added to the designs, as were various Situationist slogans from May '68 - Sous les pavés, le plage, etc. - and references to some of Malcolm's heroes, such as the playwright Joe Orton.    

 

Pamela Rooke - known as Jordan - was hired as a sales assistant and quickly became the shop's face. 

 

In fact, Jordan embodied the spirit of the store better than anyone; better than the extraordinary clientele (which included members of the Bromley Contingent as well as the newsreader Reggie Bosanquet); better than members of the band; better even than Malcolm and Vivienne (though it can't be denied how great the latter also looked wearing her own designs) [2].  

 

Sex was far removed from the retro-revivalism of Let It Rock - although arguably Too Fast To Live possessed some of the same sense of danger and fetishistic appeal - and the customers who hung out at Sex were not the ageing Teddy boys who had so quickly bored and disappointed McLaren. They were, as mentioned, kids who had come out of glam and liked to dress up to mess up and weren't shy about challenging sexual and social conventions.

 

Paul Gorman provides an excellent summary:

 

"As an environmental installation, Sex was sensational; it literally assaulted the senses. The hectoring tone of the scawls on the 'soft' madhouse walls, the heavy jersey of the T-shirts showing severe images and text in queasy colours, the lack of natural light which produced a dull shine on the clinical black rubber garments and the powdery looking drapes, the clammy atmosphere, the 1960s garage-punk blasting from the BAL-AMi, all combined to make the experience unsettling, commanding commitment - a big Sex word - on the part of the visitor. When the door was closed, one felt less like a customer than a client entering a well-appointed dungeon, particularly when coolly appraised by the stern-faced Westwood." [3]  

 

Sex was, thus, a truly magical space aligned with McLaren's own artistic, sexual, and political obsessions. Whilst a million miles away from being what we now term a safe space inhabited by those who describe themselves as woke, it neverthless demanded that customers one day wake up and realise which side of the bed they were lying on [4].

Photo by David Dagley taken inside Sex in 1976 featuring (from L-R):

Steve Jones, Unknown, Alan Jones, Chrissie Hynde, Jordan, & Vivienne Westwood

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Malcolm McLaren, quoted by Paul Gorman in The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, (Constable, 2020), p. 220.

 

[2] As Paul Gorman notes, in 1975, aged 34, Westwood "cut a stunning figure stalking the streets of west and central London, with her shock of blonde hair complemented by such Sex designs as rubber knickers and stockings and a porn T-shirt or a studded Venus top". See The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, p. 251.

 

[3] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, p. 226. 

 

[4] I'm referring here to the famous T-shirt conceived by Bernie Rhodes and known (by its abbreviated title) as 'You're Gonna Wake Up'. See the post published on Torpedo the Ark on 16 Dec 2012 on the political importance of making lists: click here.    

On Punks, Hippies, and the Boy in the Blue Lamé Suit

 Joe, Johnny, and Jello in their pre-punk days

 

One of the defining characteristics of punks back in the day, was that they hated the complacency, passivity, and untrustworthiness of middle-class hippies and they differentiated themselves from peace-loving flower children by their hairstyles and clothes: no long hair or beards and no flared jeans or tie-dyed T-shirts with groovy psychedelic prints. 

Having a close-cropped barnet was just as much a sign of radical militancy for the punks as it had been for the rank-and-file Roundheads and very few of them had flowing long locks covering their ears. So it's always a little disconcerting to come across old photos of figures central to the punk revolution - including Rotten, Strummer, and Biafra - and see them looking like ... well, hippies!

 

No wonder Jamie Reid later advised us to never trust a punk either (that punks were, in fact, often just hippies in disguise).

 

 

II. 

 

One is also reminded, upon seeing these pictures, that, essentially, we have Malcolm to thank for concocting an anti-hippie aesthetic and philosophy - not Johnny, Joe, or Jello. It was McLaren's provocative and fetishistic take on fashion, his anarchic politics inspired by Situationism, and a penchant for 1950s rock 'n' roll - all brilliantly expressed in the slogan Sex, Style and Subversion - out of which the look of what became known as punk developed. 

 

Vivienne Westwood would later recall just how odd looking 20-year-old Malcolm was when she met him in the mid-1960s; with his very, very pale skin and his very, very short hair he looked so unlike his contemporaries. If he was, in many regards, a typical product of his era and cultural environment, McLaren was never a hippie and only ever had scorn for them. 

 

Thus it was that, in 1971, Malcolm bought a pair of blue-suede creepers, which, as Paul Gorman notes, had by this date long gone out of fashion; street style was now defined by "feather-cut hair, the ubiquitous flared loon pants, stack-heeled boots, platform shoes and velvet suits" [1]. 

 

For McLaren, the shoes: 

 

"'Made a statement about what everyone else was wearing and thinking. It was a symbolic act to put them on. Those blue shoes had a history that I cared about, a magical association that seemed authentic. They represented an age of revolt - of desperate romantic revolt [...]" [2]             

Later, he combined the shoes with a 1950s style blue lamé suit (made by Vivienne) and a matching ice-blue satin shirt: "'I decided it would be really cool to be like Elvis, to be a Teddy Boy in a kind of defiant anti-world and anti-fashion gesture [...]'" [3]

  

And that - boys and girls - is the spirit of punk; more heroic than hippie (and it comes quiffed or spiky-topped, rather than lanky long-haired or feather-cut). 

 

Malcolm the proto-punk (1972)

 

 

Notes

[1] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, (Constable, 2020), p. 119. 

[2] Malcolm McLaren, quoted by Paul Gorman, ibid.

[3] Malcolm McLaren, quoted by Paul Gorman, ibid., p. 131.

 

 

For a sister post to this one entitled 'Never Mind the Spiky Tops' (28 Nov 2023), click here.  

On Punk, Pink, and Dollification

(L) SA wearing a pink gingham check shirt from Child of the Jago [1]

(R) Ken Doll wearing a pastel pink and mint green striped 

two-piece beach set by Mattel [2]

 

 

For me, pink is one of the essential colours of punk: which is undoubtedly why Jamie Reid used it (along with bright yellow and black) for the provocatively lurid sleeve of Never Mind the Bollocks and why, many years earlier, the proto-punk fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli had created a shocking shade of pink to be synonymous with her brand. 

 

Thus, when I wore a pink (and white) ensemble for an event in Bloomsbury recently, I was confidently expecting it to be received within the context of the above history of art and fashion.

 

Unfortunately, there were some young people present that evening whose cultural references are far more contemporary and, in their eyes, I looked like a refugee from Barbie World - which is, arguably, a little unkind, if not entirely unfair: after all, who wants to be thought of as a human doll? 

 

Having said that, if it's okay for Ryan Gosling to be dolled up and dollified, for his role as Ken in the movie Barbie (dir. Greta Gerwig, 2023), then why should I worry?

 

And even Sid Vicious was ultimately reduced to the status of an action figure following his death (if not, indeed, years prior to his tragic and untimely demise) - although, sadly, not wearing the pair of pink peg-leg pants that he loved so much ... [4] 

     

 

 Jamie Reid: Sid Vicious Action Man 

£12.50 [3]

 

Notes

 

[1] Photo by Paul Gorman taken on 7 Sept 2023 outside Treadwell's Bookshop (London)

 

[2] Anyone interested in buying the doll (£44.99) can visit the Mattel website by clicking here. 

 

[3] This image by Jamie Reid was used to promote the Sex Pistols single 'Something Else', released from the album The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (Virgin Records, 1979). The original poster is in the Jamie Reid archive at the V&A and can be viewed online by clicking here. Obviously, Reid is critiquing the co-option and commodification of punk by the Spectacle (as well as, perhaps, the exploitation of dead performers, who will never be allowed to rest in peace so long as they can still shift product). 

 

[4] Sid can be seen wearing these pink pegs in a short film on Youtube provided by ITV Channel Television, which shows the Sex Pistols at Jersey Airport in the summer of 1977 about to board a plane, having been officially ordered to leave the island: click here. Paul Gorman informs me that Sid had actually borrowed the trousers from guitarist Steve Jones, who had bought them years earlier from Let It Rock.  

 

 

For a post published back in Feb 2019 on the politics of pink, click here.

 

 

The Malcolm McLaren Estate Vs The Vivienne Foundation

 

 

I. 

 

Once upon a time, as everybody knows, Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood were lovers, creative collaborators, and business partners. But then they fell out, went their separate ways, built solo careers, began to bore everyone, got old and died.   

 

 

II. 

 

The Malcolm McLaren Estate was established by his sole heir and executor - as well as his girlfriend and business partner for the last twelve years of his life - Young Kim. 

 

Its primary purpose seems to be to advance the idea that Malcolm was a visionary genius and pop cultural icon: "An artist in the most post-modern sense of the word, working in every conceivable artistic and intellectual medium ..."

 

 

III.

 

The Vivienne Foundation was launched as a not-for-profit organisation following her death in 2022 [1]. 

 

It exists not merely to honour, protect and continue the legacy of Westwood's creativity and activism, but in order to implement "Vivienne's plan to save the world" by halting climate change, stopping war, defending human rights, and protesting capitalism. 

 

IV.

 

Unfortunately, but perhaps inevitably, relations between the Malcolm McLaren Estate and The Vivienne Foundation are not exactly cordial. 

 

And this week, they have taken a significant turn for the worse following an article by Young Kim in which she reveals the truth about Vivienne's creative relationship with Malcolm and Westwood's unrelenting animosity towards the man who enabled her to become a celebrated fashion designer [2].

 

Kim's main complaint - and it's a serious charge, for which she has a good deal of evidence and justification - is that The Vivienne Foundation is continuing the process (started by Westwood) of revising cultural history and trying to erase McLaren's fashion legacy. 

 

Whether that justifies Kim's description of Westwood as uneducated and provincial, is debatable. 

 

And, to be fair, Westwood was a lot more than McLaren's assistant during their time together at 430, King's Road, although I absolutely believe it to be the case that the majority of ideas - certainly all the best ideas - were Malcolm's; not Vivienne's, not Bernie's, not Rotten's, but Malcolm's.   

 

Finally, Kim is also angry about the fact that many of the McLaren-Westwood designs sold as authenticated originals - with the Vivienne Foundation's blessing and support - are, she says, inferior copies, or fakes.

V.

 

Not surprisingly, Joe Corré - co-creator and director of The Vivienne Foundation - has defended his mother and responded to Young Kim's accusations. 

 

In a letter to Gill Linton [3], he claims, for example, that there "never was a 'McLaren Westwood' brand or label", which, if technically true, is more than a little disingenuous: the actual label designed (by McLaren) for the Seditionaries personal collection contains both their names (his first; then hers).

 

More astonishing, to me at least, is the fact that Corré would argue that his mother was in professional partnership with his father, McLaren, only for a "relatively short period" and that this (twelve-year) period is of minor significance compared to "the later parts of her creative career", when she produced items "of much greater interest and value".

 

Corré concludes his letter by saying that it is laughable that items sold from the McLaren-Westwood period - 1971-1983 - should first be authenticated by the Malcolm McLaren Estate: "Appraisal and authentication relies on the knowledge and credibility of experts. The McLaren Estate does not have anyone in this area and we certainly do not require their help." [4]

 

It is, as I say, all rather unfortunate ... And strangely depressing.   

 

It's also, essentially, a family feud; as evidenced by the fact that even Joe's daughter - the model and activist Cora Corré - is enlisted to defend the four pillars and help claim the moral high ground for her dear departed grandmother, whilst hardly stopping to give a tinker's toss for her equally dear, equally departed, but infinitely more interesting and amusing grandfather [5].

 

  

Notes

 

[1] I am reminded that The Vivienne Foundation was initially launched - by Westwood herself - as The Vivienne Westwood Foundation in 2018, but it's the Foundation's current existence, following Westwood's death in December 2022, that mostly interests me. Although a not-for-profit organisation, it should be noted that it is not a charity. 

 

[2] This article can be found in the Evening Standard (25 Aug 2023): click here to read online. Young Kim had originally written to Gill Linton (see note 2 below) claiming there were serious problems with the Westwood concession on Linton's Byronesque website.

 

[3] Gill Linton is the founder and Chief Executive of Byronesque, an online boutique selling contemporary vintage fashion, with whom The Vivienne Westwood Foundation work closely: click here. The letter Joe Corré sent to Linton in response to Young Kim's email to Linton - which the latter forwarded to Corré - can be read here on the Byronesque Instagram account. 

 

[4] In his letter to Linton, Joe Corré also takes an unnecessary (possibly libelous) pop at McLaren's esteemed biographer and the man who arguably knows more about the sound of fashion and the look of music than anyone else, Paul Gorman, much to the latter's understandable - slightly weary - outrage: click here.    

 

[5] In an interview on the Byronesque website entitled 'From Seditionaries to Saving the World', Cora Corré says of Westwood: "I feel incredibly privileged and lucky to have had her as a grandmother and a teacher. [...] In a way I feel her fight will always continue through me shedding light on issues and speaking up for people that don't have a voice." 

      Click here to read the interview in full (if you can stomach the virtue signalling, the self-righteous hypocrisy, and political naivety that the Westwood family and foundation seem to specialise in).  

Dinner with Malcolm at L'Escargot

Malcolm McLaren enjoying a glass of wine in 1984 [1].

 

 

I.

L'Escargot is London's oldest - arguably finest and most famous - French restaurant [2].

 

Housed in a mid-18th century Georgian townhouse and located in the heart of Soho, L'Escargot was established by snail-loving Georges Gaudin, a painted sculpture of whom still sits astride a giant snail outside the restaurant to this day (see image below).

Ella Alexander - no relation - provides an excellent description in a review piece for Harper's Bazaar:

 

"If L'Escargot were a person, it would be a wealthy French dandy never seen without his cane, cravat or cigar. London's oldest restaurant is a bastion of Soho decadence, where red velvet, chandeliers and jacquard curtains still reign. It's as far from modern luxe as you can imagine, which is all part of its charm." [3]

 

Regrettably, I've only had the pleasure of dining there once - almost 40 years ago - when L'Escargot was owned by husband and wife team Nick Lander and Jancis Robinson, and managed by Elena Salvoni, widely recognised as one of the greatest maître d's of the time and known fondly by regulars as the Queen of Soho [4]. 

 

But it was a memorable night for me - not so much because of the food (mushroom soup followed by pheasant), but because of the company; for it was one of the few times I accompanied Malcolm McLaren for dinner and got to enjoy his unique genius in a more relaxed setting than the office on Denmark Street ...

 

 

 II.

 

Note: the following account is based on an entry in the Von Hell Diaries dated Tues 27 Nov 1984. 

 

Myself and Lee Ellen - the Charisma Records Press Officer - were supposed to be going for a quick bite to eat and then to the theatre. But whilst dropping off some new photos that required his approval, Malcolm insisted that we go for dinner with him and a friend who designed rubber jewellery in the shape of fish (and who, according to Malcolm, was in the IRA).

 

After a brief discussion, it was decided we'd go to L'Escargot ...

 

Malcolm was in a very buoyant and - even by his standards - exceedingly talkative mood; he was pleased with a film made for The South Bank Show that was soon to air on TV [5] and he was looking forward to escaping the muddy hole of London and starting a number of new film projects - such as Fashion Beast - in the US. 

 

Nothing was happening any more in London and any up and coming young rascal who wanted to do something radical, should, he said, relocate either to New York, Leningrad, or Australia. 

 

Other topics of conversation (by which I mean McLaren monologue) included: the history of the English music hall; famous Victorian scandals involving the British Royal Family; the influence of Jack Zipes on contemporary readings of the fairy tale; why fascism is an ever-present danger and England in the 1980s resembles Weimar Germany in the late 1920s.  

 

Malcolm was disappointed that I had to leave early - though it was nearly 1am - and told me I was a drongo for living way out west in Chiswick and should move to Bloomsbury as soon as possible. 

 

However, he did confess that whilst an art student he dated a great big fat bird who lived in Turnham Green (he also told me that at around this time he'd shot up the Spanish Embassy with a machine gun in order to protest the Franco regime, but I have my doubts about the veracity of this latter tale) [6].  

As Malcolm and Tom walked off into the Soho night, Lee Ellen and I got a taxi to Sloane Square. Walked her home and then made my way back to Chiswick. Bed at around 3am, but couldn't sleep as I felt sick - the sign, so they say, of a good evening. 

www.lescargot.co.uk

 

Notes

 

[1] Unfortunately, in an age before smart phones, no photos were taken on the night at L'Escargot that I reminisce about here. However, this image of McLaren - screenshot from The South Bank Show (see note 5 below) - was taken only a few weeks earlier in New York and he wore the same suit on the night I dined with him in Soho.

 

[2] L'Escargot, 48, Greek Steet, Soho, London W1. The restaurant is currently closed for refurbishment, but is due to re-open on 10 May 2023.

 

[3] Ella Alexander, 'L'Escargot, London: How London's oldest French restaurant kept its allure 90 years on', Harper's Bazarre (29 June 2017): click here. 

      It's easy to understand from Alexander's description why L'Escargot would be such a popular hangout for actors, artists, and fashionistas. And whilst I'm sure McLaren liked the place, I think he found the history of nearby Kettner's - founded in 1867 - far more exciting, and used to love telling stories of how the Prince of Wales would dine there with his mistress Lillie Langtry, whilst Oscar Wilde entertained young boys in the rooms above. It was in Kettner's that he also once encouraged me to smash a window.

 

[4] Born in Clerkenwell, in 1920, to parents from Northern Italy, Elena Salvoni died in March 2016, aged 95. Having started work aged 14, at Café Bleu in Soho, she devoted her life to hospitality, ending her career at L'Etoile, also in Soho, where she continued to work even after her 90th birthday. 

      Readers who are interested can find a nice feature on Elena published in the Evening Standard (29 April 2010): click here.  

 

[5] See the recent post 'When Melvyn Met Malcolm (A Brief Reflection on The South Bank Show Episode 178)' - click here.

 

[6] Who knows, maybe it's true ... As Paul Gorman reminds us, McLaren attended several political rallies and demonstrations as an art student in the 1960s, protesting against the war in Vietnam, the apartheid regime in South Africa, etc. He was even arrested, aged 20, for burning the American flag outside the US Embassy on 4 July 1966. 

      See The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, (Constable, 2020), pp. 71-72.