BAILEY'S STARDUST at the NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY

Andy's Not Dead. Warhol by Bailey (1965)

The latest exhibition of David Bailey’s work brings together over 250 images from across the whole of his career so far, spanning more than 50 years.

Being Bailey portraits (and they are almost all portraits) one, for the most part, knows what to expect: lots of black and white shots against a plain white background. They are though stunning images and a great leveller; every person looks superb whether they’re Johnny Depp, a local hard-nut off the street, or a tattooed man with multiple piercings in his Prince Albert. Okay, Depp does look better; captured in 1995 he is almost impossibly handsome. I’d happily let Bailey take my portrait. I’m free most evenings and weekends Dave, although can’t do Saturday afternoons if QPR are at home.   

The rooms are arranged in themes. The Rolling Stones are pleased to meet you on entry, including a few colour images: Jagger from Goat’s Head Soup and a grinning Charlie Watts riding a donkey (a different shot to the cover of Get Yer Ya Yas Out!). There are also Black and White Icons (not sure I’d apply the word icon to Phil Collins, Action fan or not); Fashion Icons and Beauty; Hard Men; Box of Pin Ups; East End; and room devoted to his wife, Catherine.

Less familiar are the ones from his travels to Delhi, Papua New Guinea and Naga Hills. A selection taken with a mobile phone only seems to highlight its limitations and aren't especially interesting but Bailey's recent sculptures are. A bronze Dead Andy, with Warhol's sunken face made with baked beans and topped with a shock of white/blue hair rising out of a tin of beans, is pretty funny and more surprising.

It's a steep £14.50 admission but that didn't put off any of the hundreds of people there on a Monday afternoon. 

Bailey's Stardust is at the National Portrait Gallery, Leicester Square, WC2 until 1 June 2014.  

POP ART DESIGN at the BARBICAN

The current Pop Art Design exhibition at the Barbican has a familiar feel about it with many examples seen in London galleries in recent years: from Roy Lichtenstein’s comic strips; Ed Ruscha’s block text graphics; William Klein’s dazzling film montages; Harry Gordon’s paper poster dresses; Martin Sharp’s psychedelic posters; Richard Hamilton’s collages; Andy Warhol’s flowers; Peter Blake’s Beatles; Pauline Boty’s female icons and so forth. But Pop Art by its very nature is familiar with its appropriation of everyday items, branding, advertising and cultural figures.

Pop Art Design looks at how design – furniture, clothes, architecture, etc. - and Pop-Art are entwined and inform each other. Andy Warhol’s Close Cover Before Striking (1962), a large acrylic on canvas piece depicting a matchbook adorned with Coca-Cola advertising, is placed above a 1960’s Coca-Cola dispenser; both equally bold designs and beautiful works of art. Pop Art might say something about consumerism and capitalism but to me it simply looks bright, vibrant, fun and reflects a world I can relate to. That’ll do.  

Yet what caught the eye, time and time again, was the work of Alexander Girard, a name I wasn’t aware of. Each time Mrs Monkey and I spotted something interesting and “new” it inevitably had his name on the caption. Magazine covers, lettering on cushions, curtain fabrics, household items, even a whole restaurant, there was the Girard name. As an architect, interior designer and furniture designer “Sandro” was commissioned in 1960 to design every part of La Fonda Del Sol Restaurant in New York, from the kitchen to the servery counter to the tables to the crockery to the menus and to packets of sugar. It looked an incredible place with his cheerful collection of 80 different sun motifs as an ever changing logo. And no, of course it’s not still there, I’ve checked. Not the real one anyway.

Well worth a mooch around with plenty of inspiration to be found among over 200 pieces by 70 artists. The walls of Monkey Mansions have looked starkly white and colourless ever since.

Pop Art Design is at the Barbican Centre, London until 9 February 2014, admission £12. 

For more on La Fonda Del Sol see Burning Settlers Cabin blog.

NAT FINKELSTEIN: FROM ONE EXTREME TO THE ANOTHER

Ten years ago I co-ran a psychedelic club - Orange Sunshine - in Shoreditch and we received an email from Nat Finkelstein. He said he was coming to London, staying at such-and-such hotel, and wouldn’t it be good to meet up. I already had his book Andy Warhol: The Factory Years 1964-1967, so knew of his time photographing the collected freaks from there, but fearing one of those so-what-do-we-talk-about-now-I’m-trapped-with-no-where-to-go-looking-at-my-watch-and-feet moments, I made up some excuse.

Looking again at his pictures, this time at the Idea Generation Gallery, five minutes from my old club, I’m having one of those you-stupid-plonker-what-an-opportunity-wasted moments. This – as we see - was a man who clicked away as Warhol met Dylan, who took pictures of the Velvet Underground, of Nico, of Edie Sedgwick, of Marcel Duchamp even. Who was a political activist closely associated with the Black Panthers, a drug addict wanted by the authorities, who fled the country in fear for his life. And I was worried we’d have nothing to talk about.

There are some later works but the bulk here are his grainy black and white images from the Factory era. Nat studied photography under the art director at Harper’s Bazaar, so knew his onions, but with subjects like these it was hard for him to go wrong, at least as far as the pictures were concerned. In his book he pulled no punches and there wasn’t much love lost between him and some of Andy's Superstars by the time his stint ended there. He wrote:

“They thought they were special; that was their delusion. They thought they were unique; that was their conceit. They thought they were indistinguishable; that was their downfall. Like creatures from a horror flick they emerged from the swamps of middle America crying the infectious cry of the mutant, “I need creatures who resemble me.””

Finkelstein died last October, aged 76. The mutants are on display until 14th February.

Nat Finkelstein: From One Extreme To The Other is at the Idea Generation Gallery, 11 Chance Street, London E2 until 14th February 2010. Admission free.