THE CRAWL OF HACKNEY - VIVIAN HENDERSON

For the next section of the new instalment of the modern gentleman newspaper I have been looking at Gentlemen's Clubs throughout London, however I had five clubs in mind but changed them at the last minute so that they are all in hackney. I did this after looking at some articles I found the other day...

THE LADIES OF THE GENTLEMEN

Today I have been making some important decisions about images and layout of the second instalment of the modern gentleman newspaper. I have been deciding on photos to use within the paper, and picking them out of a growing collection of vintage photos that I have been gathering...

ROBERTA PEDON

Roberta Pedon, was the stage name of the famous seventies glamour model, back then I guess it was all hippy's and free love, but Pedon was at the forefront of the men's magazines girls. Because she was young, pretty, with a spectacular large-breasted figure, Pedon's photographs frequently appeared in gentlemen's...

PIN UP GIRLS

I have been thinking about pin up girls, and how there was or still maybe is a trend for this pin up movement. A pin-up girl, also known as a pin-up model, is a model whose mass-produced pictures see wide appeal as popular culture. Pin-ups are intended for informal display, e.g. meant to be "pinned-up" on a wall. Pin-up girls may be glamor models, fashion models, and actresses. The pin up link is another thing that I want running through my work, but in using old vintage pin up girls and their photos I want to breathe new life in to them, and abstracting them into something different. All current and old lads mag's or the ones that are called gentleman's magazines feature these pin up style girls, and within the double page spread of my newspaper that is what I want to replicate.

GENTLEMAN

Another vintage magazine that includes the word gentleman, in fact that is the only word within the title, again similar to 'modern man' magazine, it was one of the first men's magazine with a broad range of subjects. supposedly there is an interesting article about stuff you didn't know about shaving, riveting.

MODERN MAN - THE ADULTS PICTURE MAGAZINE

Modern Man was a men's magazine founded in 1952, which apparently ran for several decades, I guess it was the first proper men's magazine similar to ones we see now, such as NUTS, FHM and GQ, with all the same subjects within it such as humour, cars, pop culture and of course nude women.

THE GENT MAGAZINE

Just found this vintage magazine called 'The Gent' which came out in the late fifties and has had many issues since. Its crazy how you can see the design change and the cover models get more bare as the years roll on. The website I found them has a whole archive of vintage mens mags and other stuff...

NIKA MOVENKA SPUN

Here we have Nika Movenka, a big bust model from the early seventies. Who appeared in many gentleman's magazines within her time. I decided on this photo due to the composition of her and the way I have put the circles. Again mirroring that of a pole dancer, spinning round the pole...

STRIPPER FOR CHRIST - TEDDY FERIS

I was just randomly looking for books on amazon, when I came across Teddy Ferris's book, 'Stripper For Christ - A Hermit Goes to The Gentleman's Club' It is a book designed for the kindle, but using my trusty iPhone I downloaded the short story for the sum of seventy pence, sat outside and read it. It was a pretty short story, about a guy who has never gone to a strip bar or gentleman's club, and his friend takes him, where he meets a stripper called 'Ginger', who he basically falls in love with, however Ginger is a stripper with a difference as she is a christian and follows it quite strictly, she then basically gets his number and seems to really like him too. It wasn't gripping but some of the words he was using for the look of inside the club were interesting, and how the place smelt and looked, and the clientele who were in there, sort of what you'd imagine really. An interesting insight to it.

GENTLEMAN'S CLUB SHORTLIST

With a minor knowledge of strip bars in London (mainly east London) and equipped with the trusty gentlemen's navigator app I went about putting a short list together of gentlemen's clubs around the area. All with the gentleman's club title within them. The list is as follows,

WHITES GENTLEMAN'S CLUB

NAGS HEAD GENTLEMAN'S CLUB

THE WHITE HORSE GENTLEMAN'S CLUB

THE GRIFFIN GENTLEMAN'S CLUB

LE RIFIFI GENTLEMAN'S CLUB

All these are sort of pubs, that have ladies dancing around in them, and all feature the gentleman's club accolade within the name of them. Here is a map that I have done to show where the bars are.

GENTLEMAN'S CLUB MAP

GENTLEMAN'S NAVIGATOR

This morning I have started my search for gentleman's clubs in London, which will be hand picked by the infamous Vivian Henderson. I am basically trying to get the low end clubs, not places like Spearmint Rhino and Stringfellows, because this is more of a tourist attraction, where as some of the pubs and bars I am looking at are places you wouldn't want to go near, and that is where the real 'gentlemen' are. Its strange because I have never actually been to a strip club of any description, and don't have any interest in going, however it fascinates me that some men go every night? Anyhow that is something else to think about. I was however trawling through lots of amazingly awful websites for these places most of which look like they were either done by a child in powerpoint, or done about 15 years ago. Or you typical glossy, 'suave' style website. I did stumble across an iPhone app however which helped me sift through all the questionable websites, the app is called GENTLEMEN'S NAVIGATOR (check out the weird blurred photo behind it, of some business meeting, what's that about?) and does exactly what you'd expect, find lots of clubs, pubs, bars, massage parlous and more gentlemanly delights. Whoever thought this up is one crazy gentleman, it has proved to be very helpful though, so I cant complain. I have slowly complied a list of some of the grubbiest looking pubs and bars to get a list together for Mr Henderson to give his views on.

SPUN TWO

I have been experimenting further over the last day with different mediums of image making, as for now I am going have a few sections within the newspaper, and one of the sections shall utilise images made from images i am producing now. This section is going to be connected to gentleman's magazines...

VIVIAN HENDERSON

The name of my gentleman whom will be the narrator for the next volume of the modern gentleman is called Vivian Henderson. This is a made up character, who is going to embody the person that is the flip side of a gentleman. The name is built up from two people who are a big influence on the gentleman club scene. This is firstly 'Laura Henderson' who I have mentioned on the blog before. Henderson was the founder of the Windmill Theatre in London, which was the first club in Britain to display nude women. So if you like she is the founder of british strip shows. The second names comes from 'Vivian Vann Damm' who was the manager of the Windmill club alongside Laura Henderson. Without these two pioneers gentleman's clubs may never have made it to Britain (although im sure they would have done). Anyway this is the conception of VIVIAN HENDERSON, more to come from him soon.

GORDON MAGNIN

LA based artist Gordon Magnin is another current artist that uses the medium of collage and cut-outs. Creating collages using appropriated photographic images, Magnin challenges the intended "intended objective, interpretation, and significance" of our daily diet of celebrity, advertising, and consumer based images...

SPUN

I am looking at different ways of experiments through the medium of collage and cut-outs I found this guy called Gordon Magnin who is a very interesting artist who is focusing on the collage theme, who inspired me to try out some new methods. I have basically got the image I wanted to use and cut out a various part of it...

AMIE DICKE

Amie Dickie is an artist from Holland. She has many different styles within her work however the one that has really interested me is her cut-outs. She has an amazing way of altering a photo just by cutting certain pieces out from it. I was reading a interview with her talking about the motives behind her cut-outs...

STRIPPER STRIPPED THREE

Here is another experiment for the Modern Gentleman newspaper part two. I have included a blank piece of paper, which is black. Indicating the blank patches that lie within this made up person, and the image itself. I could also use it to have text in it or other such things. I feel the graphic shapes within the image work well...

STRIPPER STRIPPED TWO

I really like this idea of refraction and pieces built together to make a new abstract form. I think its relevant to the work in the way that a lot of these gentleman's magazines and clubs are very private, with the fronts of shops that sell magazines and the clubs themselves being covered over and censored...

PAZAR TURKISH GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE

Just typed into google gentleman's magazine, and one of the photos that came up was this, its called PAZAR and is a Turkish Gentleman's magazine. The design of the front cover is actually quite sophisticated in a way, like something you'd see like Vogue or Harper's Bazaar or a magazine of that style...

STRIPPERS OVERLAPPED

Here is another quick experiment I have been doing, just layering up images. I think it creates an interesting image, however I don't know how it would work in black and white as this is what the newspaper would be printed in. But for a starting stage I like it. I think it is interesting how you can build up the picture of someone...

TRUE STORIES

I was just trying to find photos of old strippers, like the one I played about with in my quick experiment, and stumbled upon, Tracey Adams. She was basically one of the biggest adult stars of the eighties, anyway, I found a comic that was based around her and her life...

STRIPPER STRIPPED

I have just been experimenting with ways of representing strippers in an interesting way. I am unsure weather or not to make them images like you used to get in old copies of the sun, or make them updated and modern like the image above. I guess its just something that will be determined in the style of the newspaper...

THE MODERN GENTLEMAN PROFILE

At the moment I am formulating ideas for the second part of the modern gentleman work. I am basically looking at the flip-side of the notion of a gentleman, and how the term gentleman can be used for things like gentleman's clubs (strip clubs) and other such things that are not the typical gentlemanly things to be doing. It is however an interesting point that is being made with the men that partake in the gentleman club culture, because it is another setting in which these men compete. Coming back to things like the true lad website and generally yob behaviour within britain at the moment. However I guess the accolade of being called a gentleman has to be earnt, as I have pointed out in the first part of the work, and this is also relevant to the flip-side, with men competing for each others respect, for being either a gentleman or a lad.

At the moment I am thinking of different ways to bring the newspaper together with a single narrative that runs all the way through the twelve pages. I have been thinking about making an imaginary person or people that exist in a fake world, all based on things I have read that are related to the subject. I would make each a profile and at the end of it a conclusion is made by the reader to who is the most 'gentlemanly' or 'ladish' or whatever term the reader see fit.

I feel that making this imaginary person or people would be work better than actually going out and finding someone who fits the description, due to the fact that you can pull sources of different information and build this character up. Which means the information is concentrated and a more interesting picture is built up of that person.

I am also taking into consideration what Mr Crumb said in the conversation series book about making a comic/magazine/newspaper interesting enough to read and to keep the reader attention.

THE CONVERSATION SERIES - ROBERT CRUMB

Today I have been reading one of the many books in 'The Conversation Series' curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist. It was sitting on my kitchen table and belongs to Ariane. The series contains long interviews with different people every book. Robert Crumb was the interviewee this time round who's a cartoonist and illustrator...

NUMBERS

On this very sunny day I have been cutting out the numbers ready to be embossed onto the booklet for the CORE 80 work. Tomorrow I am going to go and buy all the paper stocks that I am using. It is going to consist of 3 or 4 different paper types, this is, white card, black card, thin white paper, and possible thick white card...

THE WINDMILL CLUB

I have just been reading up about strip clubs and where they originated from within europe, This is all leading into the new installment of the modern gentleman, and the flip-side the word gentleman has. Apparently the nude show for gentlemen was first introduced to britain in the thirties. A lady named Laura Henderson began the first of the nude shows which took place in The Windmill Club. There was however a law that prohibited naked girls from moving, so the women just appeared in stationary tableaux vivants. In later shows the women used rotating ropes to move their bodies around, though not actually moving themselves. I now am going to formulate an idea for the theme of the newspaper, that I can base image and text around.

CORE 80

So I have just got the point of designing the booklet that is going to go with the '80' cd that I composed a month or so ago for the 'A Space For Sound' brief with Sadhna. I have decided on having four main numbers within the booklet at certain intervals, the numbers are 0, 20, 40, 60 and 80. This is due to their breaks within the composure and how it is 4 equal distances apart from each other, meaning if put within a square you would get the 'Core' in the middle of the numbers. It is also relevant to the rhythms that are going on within the composure.

CORE 80 - ASFS

This week I am concentrating on getting the ASFS work done. The main concept behind the project was all about the noises that happen around you in certain spaces, and being at the epicentre of this, after talking to Sadhna about it all, I am now evolving this into something more advanced...