Go Wild in the Country
1981
Digital photograph, mixed media installation (Detail)
From the Biennale of Sydney, 1986
Malcolm Robert Andrew McLaren was born January 22, 1946 in North London and died April 8, 2010 in Switzerland. McLaren was a performer, impresario, self-publicist, and manager of the Sex Pistols and the New York Dolls. As a solo artist, McLaren had an innovative career which helped introduce hip hop to the United Kingdom.
One of the acts that McLaren managed in the 80s, Bow Wow Wow, was originally created to promote clothing designed by Vivienne Westwood. McLaren continued to exploit the band members, pressuring the underage lead singer to pose nude for the underage sex magazine he had created entitled Chicken, a reference to the magazine's underage content. The images from this shoot became artworks in themselves, two of which: Go Wild in the Country l and ll were exhibited in the Biennale of Sydney, 1986. These works are now in the Transfield Art Collection.
In NME, in 1976, McLaren said: ‘Rock is fundamentally a young people's music, right ? And a lot of kids feel cheated. They feel that the music's been taken away from them by that whole over-25 audience.’
