If you were looking for a good place to smash the system, why not try Mayfair? The home of the British hedge fund industry, a place of couture salons and boutique fish restaurants, London’s most monied district is also hosting the latest artwork by punk dauphin Joe Corré.
The son of Vivienne Westwood and the late Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren, Corré made headlines two years ago by burning an estimated £5m of punk memorabilia to ash. His new work, called Ash from Chaos, takes that detritus, sticks it in a casket and places it in a dark room surrounded by votive candles. The room is at the top of a set of plush carpeted stairs in the Lazinc gallery, and among those in the queue to view the work on its opening night were Dame Vivienne, Rose McGowan, the eccentric designer Daniel Lismore and Bez from the Happy Mondays.
Corré received a lot of publicity for his stunt in 2016, though not much of it was good. People criticised him for burning the stuff rather than selling it for charity. They said it was the capricious act of a wealthy scion (Corré also founded lingerie company Agent Provocateur and sold it to private equity for £60m).
“Punk is a part of my life I’m no longer interested in; it’s been that way for a long time,” Corré says. “But when you had the establishment saying they were going to celebrate 40 years of [Sex Pistols single] Anarchy in the UK, I treated that as an opportunity. Destroying something – people had no idea of its value, actually – is an exercise in showing people how manipulated they are, and the sort of reactions they have to things. These are emotional triggers and people get triggered every day.”
For the opening, Corré is dressed like a 30s Chicago gangster, his baggy houndstooth check suit topped off by a Buffalo hat. That style of hat, with its big brim and even more compendious crown, was recently popularised by Pharrell Williams, designed years before by Corré’s mother, and worn by his father. McLaren, the archetypal provocateur, was a man capable of triggering every day.
“He was a very clever manipulator who knew how to tell a story and up the ante on things,” says Corré. “A lot of it for him was based on the fun of the prank though, rather than the sincerity of the idea. And after a while people get bored of pranks. Where are you going with it? I understand that punk is just another part of the flotsam and jetsam that we consume and it has no value. But what does have value?”
The coffin in the dark room contains a replica of McLaren’s death mask. It also has a rubber duck with a mohican haircut and what looks like a Poly Styrene Barbie doll. They sit on top of the ashes in a glass coffin. On the sides, in gold leaf lettering, are bastardisations of punk slogans; “Apathy in the UK” for example and “Know Future”. As much as Corré says that punk is long dead for him, the work radiates intense personal feeling. This is someone’s past too.
The final element of the work, the real centrepiece, is a film playing on the wall at the head of the coffin. Footage of the fire, backed by a mawkish string rendition of Anarchy in the UK, fades into images of a rubbish tip, then a sea of literal crap. The cultural artefacts that Corré was derided for burning are just so much rubbish themselves.
Ash from Chaos, then, is intended as an environmental polemic: there is a sincere message here. Corré insists there’s no irony in showing such a work in a small gallery in one of the most privileged neighbourhoods on earth. “It’s about going into the lion’s den and saying ‘look at this’. That’s the point of it,” Corré says. “I’ve crashed into it, I’m not a fucking artist, I’m trying to do something effective.”
Corré will give the proceedings from this show to charity (the work is for sale at a reserve price of £6m). Bez, who became friends with Corré while protesting against fracking, believes he knows what he’s doing. “It’s important people in his position stand up and do what he does,” says Bez. “Joe wants to make a difference and 1.8bn people saw him burning that stuff. I admire him so much.”
- Ash from Chaos is at Lazinc Gallery, London, until 28 April.
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