The filth and the fury

What insights to the early days of punk — or the artist-manager relationship — might music historians glean from this caricature of Malcolm McLaren?

University of York archeologists have given the graffiti-covered walls of the Denmark Street flat once occupied by the Sex Pistols' John Lydon the Lascaux cave treatment:

'The tabloid press once claimed that early Beatles recordings discovered at the BBC were the most important archaeological find since Tutankhamun's tomb.

'The Sex Pistols' graffiti in Denmark Street surely ranks alongside this and - to our minds - usurps it.'

The researchers refer to the site as 'anti-heritage', because it contradicts what agencies and heritage practitioners typically value.

They say: 'We feel justified in sticking our tongues out at the heritage establishment and suggesting that punk's iconoclasm provides the context for conservation decision-making.

'This is an important site, historically and archaeologically, for the material and evidence it contains. But should we retain it for the benefit of this and future generations? In our view, with anti-heritage, different rules apply.'

The Daily Mail

Jukebox Jury 1978

We're so pretty oh so pretty

Sex Pistols - Live U.S. TOUR 1978. From the Lech Kowalski documentary D.O.A.








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Darling

Waltz Darling - Malcolm McLaren & The Bootzilla Orchestra


R.I.P Malcolm McLaren.

What is Punk all about?

1976. 'The London Weekend Show', hosted by Janet Street-Porter on the new youth movement Punk and the music punk rock with emphasis on the Sex Pistols.

Part 1:


Part 2:


Part 3:

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Amusing Comeuppance for Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst is known in part for his appropriation of images from other artists. So the coolpublic (newspeak I invented) and a bunch of the art world were nonplussed when he sued a 16 year old artist named Cartrain for using images of his diamond encrusted skull work entitled For the Love of God (shown below) integrated into works in his portfolio.

I can imagine British web 2.0 denizens thinking "Jings, what a tosser!" or perhaps "Stone the crows, he's a bleeding nonce!" after determining that the indescribably wealthy (he sold an entire show at Sotheby's) pot has in fact called the aspiring 16 year old kettle black.

Now a group known as redragtoabull has done a wonderful thing - they have decided to deliberately appropriate the skull image and deliberately use it in a series of compositions in hope of inciting dialogue......or worse/better. Here's a statement from their site:

"All of the works below are for sale and once TWENTY MILLION POUNDS has been raised ALL the proceeds will go to make an exact copy of a sculpture known as "For the Love of God". This will then be sold for FIFTY MILLION POUNDS and the THIRTY MILLION POUND profit will then be used to repay the Street Urchin his 200 quid, help other Street Urchins and also feed starving children in Africa and Sussex."

One of the artists is Jamie Reid who "designed 90% of the Sex Pistols LP and poster imagery" as he so vitriolically and justifiably pointed out in comments to a punk action slideshow post at PCL Link Dump

ha-HA! Striking a blow for fair play and commentary by society at large!! Art Heroes! David slaying Goliath with color and design!

The works are clever, funny, appealing and thought provoking, both message wise and process wise.

Both pix link to redragtoabull...... where one can view them as well as submit.

Oooh! Submit!

Christoph Büchel: No Future

Christoph Büchel at the biennale of sydney 2008: "...Büchel presents two conceptual projects: Guards involves having inmates in Australian prisons guarding the exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, which stands where the ‘First Fleet’ of prisoners from England came ashore in 1788. For the second project No Future a group of people, aged over 80 years, practise continuously the song ‘God Save the Queen’ (1977) by the English punk band The Sex Pistols in one of the galleries. ..."

Video added by TerminusProjector
(via BoingBoing)