Vale Malcolm McLaren, provocateur and cultural producer (1946-2010).
Apparently his last words were 'Free Leonard Peltier'.
Leonard Peltier is a Native American man convicted in the 1970s of killing two FBI Agents but who many consider innocent. He has been described as 'the Mandela of the Tribes'. McLaren's ex-partner, Vivienne Westwood was active in the campaign to free Peltier and has designed t-shirts with this slogan, which one of McLaren's visitors to the hospital was wearing.
His son Joe (42) said, "He had a sense of humour to the end."
McLaren is best known as the manager of the Sex Pistols; but he also created some amazing songs and video-art, such as this gorgeous Madame Butterfly:
Vivienne Westwood, fashion designer, co-owner of the punk shop SEX, and ex-partner, once said of McLaren:
'He taught me not to be frightened, that creativity was all a question of attention to detail and working through problems one by one. There was no magic to it - just painstaking work...
'He showed me that creativity isn't a mystical process. You don't really have to have an idea. It's the way you do something that becomes the idea in the end. It's ultimately technique which generates ideas, not ideas which generate technique. The form is the idea. .. With technique you never run out of ideas. As you cut and measure and look at fabrics, ideas come and associations are suggested - ways to progress and push things further."
(from Fashion and Perversity, pp 94 & 98)
2 comments:
Nice tribute to Melcolm. Your old punk roots are showing. Malcolm never sold out. He bought in.
Punk power from Paul B
I think that might actually be my grey roots that are showing.
thanks for tuning in,
x b
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