Paul Gorman is…

If I Was Your Girlfriend: A Jam – companion newspaper about Prince’s life, work and legacy is a funky delight

Feb 10th, 2019

Arriving in a kinky sealed purple polythene envelope, If I Was Your Girlfriend: A Jam is the new publication which has been issued as a companion piece to last spring’s exhibition at London’s leading edge art space Belmacz.

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My talk on 430 King’s Road at the ICA’s interiors symposium is online now

Oct 19th, 2015

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Earlier this year I participated in a symposium on interior design and pop culture at London’s Institute Of Contemporary Arts.

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Ben Kelly aka The Photo Kid outside Sex, 430 King’s Road, World’s End, 1975

Mar 14th, 2015

3. Sex-exteriorBenKelly

//Ben Kelly underneath the Sex sign, 1975. Photo courtesy Ben Kelly//

I’m featuring this image of designer Ben Kelly in his persona of The Photo Kid in my presentation about the design history of 430 at the symposium Dead Or Alive: Popular Culture & The Interior, which takes place today at London’s ICA.

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Little space with a big impact: Talking about 430 King’s Road at ICA interior design symposium in March

Jan 19th, 2015

Seditionaries_gscan_3

//Portfolio shot of the newly completed Seditionaries, 430 King’s Road, London SW10,  December 1976.
(c) Ben Kelly//

Interior Design: Dead Or Alive is the title of the symposium being organised by the prominent British designer Ben Kelly at London’s Institute Of Contemporary Arts on March 14.

I am a contributing speaker alongside writer/curator Michael Bracewell, designers Fred Deakin, Ed Barber & Jay Osgerby and Peter Saville, artists Lucy McKenzie and Bridget Smith and David Toop of the London College Of Communications and Tate Britain’s Andrew Wilson.

“We’re going to be taking stock of the ways in which iconic interiors affect and influence the direction of popular culture and the wider world,” says Kelly, who is putting the event together in his capacity as professor of interior design and spatial studies at the University of the Arts London.

Seditionaries plaque

//Portfolio shot of the freshly installed Seditionaries name plaque, December 1976. (c) Ben Kelly//

Among Kelly’s designs was the November 1976 transformation of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s shop Sex at 430 King’s Road into Seditionaries. Knowing that I have researched and produced a substantial document on the history of 430 King’s Road, Kelly has asked me to address this little space with a big impact in terms of its importance as a cultural hub and incubator of often radical ideas.

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Monster V&A design book: Bubbles, Hirst, The Queen + Bowie get special treatment…but where’s Malcolm?

Mar 21st, 2012

British Design from 1948: Innovation in the Modern Age

British Design From 1948: Innovation In The Modern Age – the new book accompanying the forthcoming show at the V+A – is a bumper edition: 400 pages weighing in at 5lbs.

It’s cheering to see Barney Bubbles’ design Ian Dury With Love granted upfront prominence; the poster is in select company given special treatment by the book’s designer, Barnbrook’s Daniel Streat. The others are: Cecil Beaton’s 1953 coronation portrait of The Queen, a shot of Damien Hirst’s Notting Hill restaurant Pharmacy and Brian Duffy’s Aladdin Sane portrait of David Bowie.

Barney Bubbles' Ian Dury poster treated by Jonathan Barnbrook

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