Paul Gorman is…

My playlist for the Fandangoe Discoteca opening at Canary Wharf next week

Jul 18th, 2023

//Annie Frost Nicholson with the Fandangoe Discoteca. Pic courtesy of anniefrostnicholson.com//

Next week sees the opening at London’s Canary Wharf of artist Annie Frost Nicholson’s Fandangoe Discoteca, the mini-disco installation where we can shake out our grief and help maintain daily mental health – the programme covers all intersections of grief from bereavement to climate angst to political rage to break-ups.

The design of the kiosk was inspired by De Stijl and Ettore Sottsass and holds up to eight dancers at a time.

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TON: Dave Baby’s Temple of Desire

Apr 17th, 2023

The new interiors magazine TON – the first issue is out now –  has two pieces by me on very different but equally extraordinary homes.

TON’s founder and editor-in-chief Jermaine Gallacher – who works with art director Rory Gleeson and editorial director Ted Stansfield – commissioned me to write about Dave Baby’s apartment close to where we both live, in south London’s Stockwell.

As I write, ‘this otherworldly space represents a bewitching realm of desires, sexuality and esoterica with Dave at the maelstrom’s centre, a still figure dispensing wily wit and charm’.

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Curious, humorous and anonymous: Ian Harris’s Argos art postcard interventions

Feb 18th, 2017

/A selection of the 60 appended cards Harris placed in London art gallery and museum shops. No reproduction without permission//

//The Death Of Marat, Jacques-Louis David, 1793. No reproduction without permission//

//Charles I, Daniel Mytens, 1631. Card from National Portrait Gallery. No reproduction without permission//

Ian Harris is a man of many parts, having been at various stages in his life a successful graphic artist, fashion designer, homewares retailer and musician/performer, notably with late 60s blues-rock group The Earth and as his mod revival alter ego Terry Tonik.

Just this week Harris let me in on a curious, humorous and anonymous public intervention series he staged in London galleries and museums a few years back.

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I’m Waving: Emma Alonze brings art, chaos + disorder back to the King’s Road

Jul 8th, 2016

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As part of west London’s recent INTransit festival, artist Emma Alonze staged a series of chaotic public interventions in and around Chelsea’s King’s Road under the title I’m Waving.

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//Cakewalking: Alonze with Alexander James Turner, Andy Becker, James Batley and Mandi Goodier. This and other cake parade photos: Claire Poulter//

The two-and-a-half mile thoroughfare has all but lost its reputation as the wellspring for creative activity so Alonze’s acts – by turn absurd, impulsive and surprising – were most welcome in the neighbourhood where property values rather than artistic considerations top the agenda.

And I’m Waving was achieved against resistance from the local council, which deemed six of Alonze’s 10 planned acts “not suitable”.

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The Conformist: Last few days of this glittering celebration of great British non-conformity from Emma, Lady Hamilton to Punk Rock and beyond

Apr 12th, 2016
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//Details of Judy Blame jewellery with Helen Bullock bag//

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//Bullock’s window for The Conformist at Belmacz, 45 Davies Street, London W1//

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//Curator Paul Kindersely with wall of David Parkinson photographs 1970-75//

“So great to see an eclectic range of images and objects that challenge norms and play with moral codes”
The Courtauld’s Documenting Fashion blog

The Conformist – artist Paul Kindersley’s celebration of great British non-conformity of expression – is now entering its final few days.

If you have the opportunity, I recommend a visit to this fascinating exhibition (at Mayfair’s art/jewellery space Belmacz) which joins the dots between Emma, Lady Hamilton and Punk Rock, via Judy Blame, Leigh Bowery, Helen Bullock, Jennifer Campbell, Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, Paul Housley, Malcolm McLaren & Vivienne Westwood, Julie Verhoeven, Rose Wylie and many other glittering and creative creatures.

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Cosey Fanni Tutti’s Aggro Chic intervention in Club International

Nov 12th, 2015

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A few months before Cosey Fanni Tutti upset the apple-cart as a member with Genesis Breyer P. Orridge of COUM Transmissions – the “wreckers of civilisation” who staged the Prostitution exhibition at London’s ICA – the performance artist/musician posed with another model for a 1976 issue of men’s magazine Club International.

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