On Thursday night I took in the opening of the Hoppy (John Hopkins) exhibition Against Tyranny: Talking about a Revolutionary at Idea Generator on Chance Street in Shoreditch. The displayed photos date from the early and mid-sixties. Mostly they seemed to be straightforward examples of photojournalism and celebrity portraiture. There were also some freak graphics by people other than Hoppy, but connected to him via his involvement with the underground newspaper International Times. So what Idea Generator presents us with is very much an official history of one phase of the London counterculture. That said, it looked a little odd in east London, when so much of what was on display depicted west London more than 40 years ago.
The opening was too packed to be able to see the images properly, but what most interested me was coverage of ‘ban-the-bomb’ demonstrations. I didn’t clock Hoppy’s Doctor Steve Abrams portraits which I’ve roundly criticised elsewhere (do a word search to get to Abrams and Hoppy on this page) for: “mimicking the depiction of male doctors and female hysterics in nineteenth-century medical paintings. Since some viewers were inevitably going to make a connection between these publicity japes and the earlier imagery upon which they so strikingly draw, Abrams left himself wide open to criticism for generating negative perceptions of both women and recreational drug users.” If these problematic images were on display, they were hidden in one of the nooks it was impossible for me to enter because of the crowds already there.
I couldn’t see enough of the show to make any real judgement of it; and beyond Joe Boyd and Hoppy himself, I spotted very few familiar faces from the sixties. I did manage to grab hold of Malcolm Dickson from Street Level Gallery in Glasgow, and as we needed to catch up, we ducked out for refreshments elsewhere. So I guess I’ll go back and see the show properly later, it is on until 19 July. The place was just too mobbed, with endless flashbulbs going off and professional film-makers getting in my way, to be pleasant.
Moving on, I hadn’t posted anything on YouTube for more than six months until yesterday because I was fed up with being censored on that site. As I’ve said elsewhere: “YouTube actually removed a parody of a Fluxus film for violating their rules. This was a countdown from 10 to 1, no images in it at all, just numerals. Presumably the problem was the joke title 10 Erotic Movies – it had more than twenty thousand hits before being taken down by the authoritarians who run that platform. If YouTube won’t allow a film like this, then Web 2.0 is a joke and we need to move on to Web 2.1, where we control the sites we’re posting on!”
But right now there is a new video of mine up on YouTube entitled Does Modern Art Give You A Headache? Check it out, and see how it emerged from an earlier blog on this site: Performing Localities: Recent Guatemalan Performance Art On Video.
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org - you know it makes (no) sense!
Tags: 10 Erotic Movies, Against Tyranny: Talking about a Revolutionary, ban-the-bomb, Chance Street, Does Modern Art Give You A Headache, east London, Fluxus, Hoppy, Idea Generator, International Times, Joe Boyd, John 'Hoppy' Hopkins, John Hopkins, London, Malcolm Dickson, Performing Localities: Recent Guatemalan Performance Art On Video, Shoreditch, Steve Abrams, Street Level Gallery, Web 2.1, west London, YouTube
comments on the way
@Harold Pinter
There is no truth whatsoever in the false rumours that the Kansas senate is actually a front for the CIA!
The opening was awful, some old person from the sixties had too much to drink and puked over my new jacket! I don’t like old people, they leak body fluids everywhere!
On Puking by Harold Pinter
Oh poo…
No, pu-re-pu-pu-pu-ke!
Eek!
@Harold Pinter 2009
Boogie Til You Puke!
I could puke all over you!
On Puking Over Harold Pinter
I puke your words out of my body
I piss your pathos
My pores expel your onomatopoeia
Ex – ex – ex – spell
All Rights Reserved Joan Webster 2009
I’m gonna be, gonna be sick on you! Down your face and your dress and your legs and your shoes, sick on you!
Joan baby, I’ve dumped you on account of your ultra-feminist behaviour. No quasi-poetry of yours will bring me back to you.
Point of no Return by Harold Pinter
No-no-no Joan,
Never again…
Trippy is the answer.
Id. Ego. Super-ego.
©Harold Pinter 2009
Stewart, I lllllloved your new jacket
That’s all you’re good at dumping! Ha ha Harold you obviously didn’t read my poem of genius as it was critique rather than reconciliation and for your information I have given up being a feminist and become a man.
xxxxx kissey kissey
comrade L.B., ou es-tu?
you’ve become a man, Joan? No kissey-kissey then!
Frankly, modern art gives me ballache.
Bring on Web 3.0!
No just a stereotypical hysterical female
I thought this blog was well presented with nice riffs on the horn. I give it 8 for presentation, 6 for content and 6 for Star Quality. I hope to see you back next week.
Je suis en Kiloran et Londres.
Oh I wish I’d known about this opening. I love Hoppy’s work. I met him at Christmas at the Getty/Redferns party and bought his book from him. I particularly loved the photograph of the prostitute’s room.
8-6-6 out of 100?
What about 36-22-36? And that’s not out of 100; it’s my figure if you’ll cough up for the surgery!
The Cough by Harold Pinter
Cough-cough,
Harrummph!
Harrummph!
Harrummph
Arrrghhhhh….
©Harold Pinter 2009
you need to put on a few pounds, Trippy
plink
plink
fizz
Well I can give him a few – pounds that is.
I’d give him one. He’s well fit.
[...] Incidentally, read about Youtube’s treatment of Stewart Home’s Fluxus parody here. [...]