Exhibition: Shallow, A Series of Musical Paintings, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, until January 10 2010
Few people will openly admit to wanting to watch other people have sex, even if they secretly fantasise about it. Fewer still are likely to sit in a dark cinema watching others getting it on and then talk openly about it afterwards.
That is, of course, unless it is all done in the name of art. And if they are invited to do so by legendary cultural icon Malcolm McLaren, then that also makes it all right.
The residents of Gateshead are being encouraged to shamelessly saunter over to the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art and shed their inhibitions in McLaren’s latest offering, Shallow – a series of filmic clips of strangers just about to have sex.
The 21 "musical paintings" have been assembled from faded scenes of 1960s porn films. Amateurish, grainy and conspicuously cheap, they have been intricately spliced together and set to random pop music in an effort to provoke and hypnotise the viewer.
Shallow matches grainy film clips with random music
Relishing the role of salacious alchemist, McLaren has mined the depths of pop culture for these images.
Reliant upon suggestion and innuendo, they lack any clear narrative. The "look of music" and "sound of fashion" is just as important as sex here, with the filmmaker asking us to consider how human intimacy and feelings inflect popular culture.
As an art student, McLaren freely admits to a mis-spent youth lounging around his flat smoking and watching the porn films of the day. Only now has he gone in search of them, focussing this time on the intimate portraits of the people they contain, the desires they exhibit and the thoughts and behaviours they play out.
If anyone knows that sex sells it is McLaren. It has played an integral part in his career and unique identity as a post-modern artist for over 30 years. The ubiquitous three-letter word crops up again and again on his CV.
Whether it was as Manager of The Sex Pistols, sometime boyfriend of Vivienne Westwood or mastermind behind the brazenly titled Sex boutique in the Kings Road that became infamous for its stock of fetish and bondage gear in the 1970s, sex has been the driving force behind his notoriety.
The "look of music" and "sound of fashion"
Delightfully irrepressible, McLaren is the ultimate self-publicist and knows how to keep his name in the headlines. He is also uncompromising when it comes to his artistic integrity – he made news in 2007 when he pulled out of ITV show I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here at the last minute, claiming it was "fake".
There is certainly nothing phony about Shallow. In repeating and slowing down the shots from his chosen films, McLaren has managed to probe both his subjects' psyches and, most importantly, our ongoing obsession with sex.
Northerners now have the opportunity to join New Yorkers who saw nine of the pieces displayed on one of Times Square’s huge high definition screens in 2008.
And if they have any qualms about watching something slightly risqué they can always reassure themselves that this is the work of the man who ran for Mayor of London in 1999.
All images © the artist
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