//George O'Dowd in Street Theatre, 12 Ganton Street, central London, 1978. Photo (c): Boy George Collection//

I’ve been acting as a consultant to artist Lucy Harrison on her latest site specific project Carnaby Echoes, which focuses on the culturally fertile area of central London adjacent to Soho.

With the starting point of the opening of Murray’s Club in Beak Street in 1913, Harrison is mounting her artistic response to 100 years of musical history with archival material and fresh interviews with some of the area’s leading lights.

Of course, this will encompass the much-picked-over Swinging London phase but also shed light on such lesser-celebrated narratives as those surrounding Murray’s and the Roaring Twenties nightclub.

//O'Dowd dressing The Regal window, Newburgh Street, central London, 1980. Photo: Boy George Collection//

Yesterday I dug into The Look archive for Harrison for relevant images of George O’Dowd, who was given a break in the late 70s by local entrepreneur Peter Small. As O’Dowd told me for my book The Look: “I used to hang around in Fans, the punky t-shirt shop in Old Compton Street. One day I was being lippy and said to Peter Small, the guy that ran it,’Your windows are disgusting. I could do a much better job’.”

Small called the kid’s bluff by directing him to window-dress another of his stores, Street Theatre in nearby Ganton Street: “I went in on a Monday and had a really good time putting fabric everywhere and making the dummies look better.”

Small also employed O’Dowd at his psychedelic revival boutique The Regal in Newburgh Street, and in 1981 converted Street Theatre into The Foundry as a showcase for the combination of O’Dowd’s visual capabilities and the talents of young designer Sue Clowes, who had cut her teeth at Jon Baker’s early New Romantic store Axiom after leaving Camberwell School Of Art.

//From New Sounds New Styles issue 3, May 1982. Photo: Mark Lebon; layout: Malcolm Garrett//

//From New Sounds New Styles 3. Photo (left): Nigel Wingrove; photo (right) James Merrill; layout: Malcolm Garrett//

Read Chapter 24 of The Look for more on The Foundry’s importance in the story of 80s music and fashion.

O’Dowd and I also wrote about his experiences in fashion as Culture Club was forming in Straight With Boy George.

Sue Clowes remains active as a designer, and is currently revisiting her archive with a range based on The Foundry designs – see here.

Read more about Lucy Harrison and Carnaby Echoes here.

This is designer Ben Kelly at his 1974 degree show at London’s Royal College Of Art.

Kelly adopted the alter-ego The Photo Kid, who is portrayed in the work by which he is standing. The Photo Kid wore clothes – in particular brothel creepers – from Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s shop Let It Rock, as did Kelly; the shoes, pink socks and belt in this photograph all came from there, while the Hopalong Cassiday & Topper top (see Ian Harris’s comment below) was picked up at a Paris flea market.

By this time Kelly had designed the RCA’s Art Bar with fellow student Geoff Hollington and within a few years was developing industrial, high-tech and postmodern themes in designs for Paul Howie’s boutique at 138 Long Acre in Covent Garden, McLaren & Westwood’s Seditionaries, Keith Wainwright’s King’s Road hairdressing salon Smile and, of course, Manchester’s Haçienda nightclub.

Kelly remains at the forefront of his field; BKD is one of Britain’s leading interior design practices.

I was flattered to be invited to contribute this playlist to Tim Broun’s great blog Stupefaction:

01. Cocoa Song from Moon Over The Alley OST
02. I Start Counting – Basil Kirchin
03. Say You Don’t Mind – Colin Blunstone
04. Cut The World – Antony & The Johnsons
05. Burundi Black (Part 2) – Burundi Stephenson Black
06. Bo Diddley – Bo Diddley
07. Boogie Children – John Fred & the Playboys
08. Jump Sturdy – Dr John
09. Natty Dread Taking Over – Culture
10. Love A We Deal With – Big Youth
11. Train To Rhodesia – Big Youth
12. Sadness Is A Blessing – Lykke Li
13. The Lights Of Tucson – Jim Campbell
14. Coz I Luv U – Slade
15. High – Ssion
16. Inside Out – Odyssey
17. Genesis – Grimes
18. Baby’s On Fire – Die Antwoord
19. Sick Of Myself – Matthew Sweet
20. You Shouldn’t Do That – Hawkwind (full live version)

Stupefaction features a 15-track Spotify and 20-track video version here.

You may go direct to the Youtube version here.

Enjoy.

Paris, Capital of the XXIst Century is a personal and subjective journey that began firstly by ambling through a century’s archive of thousands of cinema commercials about the city (its inhabitants, what it sells, how it looks…), secondly by gathering impressions (choosing what to exploit, covet and keep), jotting them down only when I returned to my studio. Then, using these specific scenes as a palette and my voice as a brush, twenty-one portraits emerged of a Paris I had never witnessed before.

Malcolm McLaren November 2009

Tomorrow (June 10), Art Basel will host a screening of Malcolm McLaren’s final artwork, Paris, Capital of the XXIst Century.

Selected by curator Marc Glöde – who describes the examination of the intersections of art and commodity as “a beautiful visual poem” – Paris, Capital of the XXIst Century will be shown at 10pm at Stadtkino Basel in Klostergasse. The screening is followed by a Q&A with McLaren’s partner Young Kim hosted by Glöde.

The film – which I saw at its first screening at the The Baltic arts centre in Gateshead, north-east UK, in 2009 – takes its name from philosopher Walter Benjamin’s 1931 essay Paris, Capital of the XIXth Century.

Young Kim says it is typical of McLaren’s work: “Collage style, taking the detritus of culture – used and discarded ads – and creating something magical, like an alchemist, like all great artists.”

Pre-order tickets here or visit the Film information desk at Art Basel, entrance area of Hall 2. Holders of Art Basel VIP cards, Art Basel tickets and Exhibitor passes may obtain complementary film ticket at the Stadtkino Basel box office.

Here is a summary of Benjamin’s Paris Capital of the XIXth Century.

I can’t wait to see documentarist Toby Amies’ envoi to his extraordinary friend Drako Oho Zarhazar.

Over the last year or so when we have bumped into each other socially, Amies has shown me snippets on his phone. Each tasty morsel has increased my hunger for this portrait of the late Brighton dweller Amies describes as “muse for Dali, actor for Jarman, dancer at Les Folies Bergère, outsider interior decorator, hero and legend”.

The title refers to Zarhazar’s condition; he suffered from anterograde amnesia, which meant that he could not create new memories so existed utterly in the present. Much of the film was shot in the 75-year-old’s home/installation, which he decorated with art, slogans and porn.

The Man Whose Mind Exploded is showing at Sheffield Doc/Fest – details here.

Visit Toby Amies’ website here.

//Johnny Moped, Dave Berk, Fred Berk, Slimy Toad, 1977. Photo: Chiswick Records//

In an age clogged up with boil-in-the-bag popular music documentaries, I’m looking forward to Fred Burns’ Basically, Johnny Moped, about the unpredictable outsider who emerged via associations with The Damned and Chrissie Hynde during the post-punk period to strut and fret his hour upon the stage.

Moped and his band – Dave and Fred Berk and Slimy Toad – were out and about a lot in 1977 and 1978; I caught them a couple of times, once as part of a bigger bill at Camden Town’s Music Machine (now Koko) and another time in the West End (possibly The Marquee).

Their single Darling, Let’s Have Another Baby was (and remains 35 years later) a stand-out song of the period and Barney Bubbles’ artwork for that and other Moped releases and promotional material sealed the deal.

//Front cover 7in sleeve: Darling, Let's Have Another Baby/Something Else/It Really Digs, Chiswick Records, 1978. Design: Barney Bubbles//

//Back cover, design: Barney Bubbles//

Music business legend Jake Riviera memorably summed up their relationship in my Bubbles monograph Reasons To Be Cheerful: “”Barney loved Johnny Moped. It was a case of ‘Bring me your dented and bent out of shape’.”

//Front cover, 12in sleeve: Cycledelic, Chiswick Records, 1978. Design: Barney Bubbles//

"Breaking out of misogyny". Artwork for music press advertisement, Barney Bubbles, 1978//

//Poster, 750mm x 500mm, Barney Bubbles, 1978//

Bubbles also directed two unreleased promo videos which captured the Mopeds’ peculiar presence; I screened these along with Bubbles promos for such songs as The Specials’ Ghost Town at my 2010 exhibition Process: The Working Practices Of Barney Bubbles.

Start of Barney Bubbles 1978 promo for Incendiary Device:

Bubbles’ footage appears in Basically, Johnny Moped, which is being screened for the first time at next week’s Sheffield Documentary Festival.

Burns – the son of The Damned bassist Captain Sensible (whose real name is Ray Burns) - was introduced to Moped by his father in 2009. “The legends of the band were hilarious,” says Burns. “I had just come out of film school and had a camera on me so captured some of the stories with the intention of making a short film some day. Here I am, four years later with a feature film on my hands.”

//Moped and pushchair, 1974. Photo: Dave Berk//

//Chiswick records press shot: Fred Berk, Slimy Toad, Dave Berk, Johnny Moped, 1977//

Contributors naturally include Sensible, as well as Hynde, Shane Magowan and artist/poet/performer Billy Childish.

Details of the film’s inclusion in Sheffield Doc/Fest here.

See more designs for Johnny Moped and read about the connection to thespian Simon Callow at the Barney Bubbles Blog here.

Buy signed copies of Reasons To Be Cheerful for £25 + postage – order with location here.

All together now: “Darling, let’s have another baby…”

In her review this weekend of TJ Clark’s new book Picasso And Truth: From Cubism To Guernica, Financial Times art critic Jackie Wullschlager writes about how meaninglessness replaced absolute truth in the 20th century epoch of terror and totalitarianism, and that “in our age of performance and body art, Clark brilliantly posits a Picasso who replaced a truth project with a performance project, playing, dazzling, persuading.”

//Picasso sketches a priapic portrait of Michele Sapone at his villa La Californie, Cannes, 1957. Photo: DD Duncan//

//Pastels given to Sapone by Picasso, including the portrait made on April 1, 1957//

In his personal life as in his art, these characteristics were foregrounded by last year’s publication of Luca Masia’s book about Michele Sapone, Il Sarto di Picasso (Picasso’s Tailor).

“Picasso is a little model,” Sapone told Time magazine in 1971. “I have made him velvet robes, kilts, jackets embroidered in the Yugoslav manner. I assure you, he wears them with majesty.”

//Sapone in the fitting room at his atelier, 14 rue Châteauneuf, Nice, 1960//

//Fitting for bespoke kilt, velvet jacket and checked stockings, 1957//

//Left: Decorated photograph with wife Jacqueline at the 1960 Cannes film festival. Photo: Edward Quinn. Right: Wearing a jacket "embroidered in the Yugoslavian style", 1958. Photo: DD Duncan//

//Tailor and client, La Californie, 1956. Photos: André Villers//

//Birthday party, October 25, 1956. Photo: Edward Quinn//

Not yet published in English translation, Il Sarto di Picasso’s photographs reveal much about the interplay between master tailor and illustrious client, all the while placing the Italian Sapone, his wife Slavka and their daughter Aïka dead centre of Continental Europe’s mid-century artistic milieu. Sapone was the recipient of works by leading artists, though when recalling the first time he was offered one in exchange for a suit (by the Florentine artist Manfredo Borsi) he confessed: “I had never looked at a painting in my whole life; I looked at women.”

Aïka, meanwhile, modelled for Giacometti and her Libro d’Oro (one of the so called “golden books” published privately by Italian nobility) features work dedicated by Picasso, other clients and those in the family’s social circle, including artists Jean Arp, Alberto Burri, Sonia Delaunay, Hans Hartung, Paul Mansouroff and Gino Severini and the poet Jacques Prévert.

//Sapone with a Jean Arp sculpture.Photo: Edward Quinn//

//Photograph of Alberto Giacometti by Yoshi Takata with note on reverse to Aïka Sapone, 1959//

//Sapone (right) with the painters Anna-Eva Bergman and Hans Hartung in the Grand Hotel, Juan-le-Pins, mid-60s//

//With artist Alberto Magnelli at La Ferrage in Grasse, 1959. Photo: André Villers//

//With Joan Miró (left), Slavka and others at the hotel La Colombe d'Or in Saint-Paul de Vence, early 60s. Note Miro's wall decorations in background//

TJ Clark’s Picasso And Cubism is available here; read Jackie Wullschlager’s review here.

Il Sarto di Picasso is published by Silvana Editoriale and is available here.

Read Edward Quinn on photographing Picasso here.

Here Aïka Sapone talks about modelling for Giacometti:

//Photo: Joe Stevens//

Joe Stevens’ 70s photograph of a pensive David Bowie merchandise seller is included in British artist Jeremy Deller’s British Pavilion installation English Magic at the Venice Biennale.

Stevens took the photo outside west London’s Hammersmith Odeon on July 3 1973. In one section of English Magic, Deller juxtaposes this and other images from the Bowie UK tour which culminated in that night’s gig (when Bowie famously “retired” his character Ziggy Stardust) with scenes of political strife from the same year: demonstrations, strikes and the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Read Adrian Searle on English Magic in The Guardian here and view a slide-show here.

//From Frendz, June 24, 1971//

I’m a fiend for line ads in print media; all human life is contained in the few words demanding the casual reader’s attention.

Leafing through a 1971 issue of British underground magazine Frendz (which had previously been titled Friends) I spied this ad, and wondered whether it might have been placed by the American photographer Joe Stevens. The number has a west London prefix and he was living in that part of town at the time.

I fired off an email and received this reponse earlier today:

Yes. That’s me. Ramen-scarfing “Straight Press” Joe. Looking for work, living on £10 a week, not eligible for the dole.

Times were tough. Living in a flat in Fulham where I later took photos of Malcolm (McLaren) and Vivienne (Westwood) with Rosie Boycott (newspaper columnist, Friends news editor, soon to be one of the founders of Spare Rib and later editor of The Independent) and some Frendz hippies.

Rosie and I did a spread on acupuncture for them. She submitted to the needles.

They let me use the dark room with (photographer) Phil Franks at the Portobello Road offices (next door to graphic designer Barney Bubbles’ studio). Jon Goodchild (later to move to Rolling Stone US) and Bubbles did layout. (Office gopher) Little Tony rolled the joints and Eric The Tramp brought teas from the Mountain Grill cafe.

Ah the days of innocence and utter poverty in the company of fabulous people!

Then I recieved a call from Linda McCartney – a Fillmore East photog friend – and was invited to be the first Wings Over Europe tour photographer.

My ramen days were over.

I remained at the flat till 1976-77 after taking over the lease and converting it to a photo studio, and joined NME with Nick (Kent) and Pennie (Smith, both of whom also worked for Frendz).

I don’t think the tres busy Rosie ever noticed the mad crush I had on her.

The wonderful Nicki Hepworth, Frendz’s editorial secretary, took my free ad but I didn’t get many straight press calls.The paper folded, the NME didn’t pay much and the flat was devoid of furniture so I took extra work where I could find it. I took pix for Felix Dennis for a Bay City Rollers Special and Tony Elliott over at Time Out.

By coincidence Elliott also placed a line ad in the same edition of Frendz. His appeal for a “hippy” was rather undercut by the offer of luncheon vouchers and a company car, but these perks can be seen as displays of Elliott’s business nous, the supreme lack of which had done for the rest of the British underground press and would soon poleaxe Frendz.

Read the story behind Friends/Frendz and the early 70s migration of Kent, Stevens, Smith and others from the underground to the mainstream music press in my book In Their Own Write.

You can buy signed copies of my Barney Bubbles monograph Reasons To Be Cheerful for £30 inc p+p UK , £35 Europe and £40 rest of the world by mailing me here.

I wrote about a Rolling Stone line ad placed by drummer Jerry Nolan three years before he joined the New York Dolls here.

The Cocoa Song is from the cult British Film Institute-funded multicultural musical Moon Over The Alley, directed by Joseph Despins and William Dumaresq.

Released in 1976 with a score by Galt McDermot, a fellow Canadian who is probably best known for his compositions for Hair, Moon Over The Alley is largely set around London W10; this scene was shot at the top end of Portobello Road market.

Use of non-actors notably helped kickstart the career of singer Sharon Forrester, seen here singing an excerpt of Spring In December.

A couple of years ago the BFI issued Moon Over The Alley on a two-header DVD with another London 70s b&w curio, Despins and Dumaresq’s deeply unsettling Duffer on its Flipside imprint. Details here.