Musical Paintings

“Today,” declares svengali-at-large Malcolm McLaren, “there are two words that sum up the culture: ‘authenticity' is one, and the other... ‘karaoke'! Many artists spend their entire life trying to authenticate, make true, a karaoke culture―but you have to be a magician to make that happen.” This book, like the exhibition from which it stems, is built around McLaren's Shallow, a series of 21 “musical paintings” made from a “grab bag of pop culture's debris over the past 50 years.” The project, curated by Bernd Wurlitzer, brought together music-related works by Delia Brown, Wolfgang Flad, Rodney Graham, Gregor Hildebrandt, Damien Hirst, Alicja Kwade, Jim Lambie, Jack Pierson, Rob Pruitt, Michael Queenland, Anselm Reyle, Michael Sailstorfer and Andreas Schulze. McLaren has proven to be a visionary of pop culture and a pop cultural icon for more than 30 years; with Shallow, he formally announces his identity as an artist.