ROCK & ROLL PUBLIC LIBRARY
FARSIGHT GALLERY
LONDON
EXTENDED UNTIL SATURDAY MARCH 22ND
This is the second part of my RocknRoll Public Library Story, part 1 is here.
It’s a sunny Wednesday and outside the Farside gallery a man is hand-penning the name of the exhibition in fluorescent pink marker. Apparently more of the sticky pink vinyl used for the first bit of the sign, already deteriorating and curling above the door, hasn’t arrived.
I congratulate and state my approval of the DIY signage and wander in. The gallery is a lot less crowded this time but, strangely, Bobby Gillespie doesn’t appear to have left, still wandering energetically around in his donkey jacket.
With time and space the exhibition reveals itself. The detail is amazing. As if all the best boot sales, jumble sales, charity shops and ancient Greenwich Village thrift stores have combined their best product. And it’s all been looked after. It would be possible to linger for two hours over just one section, or pick a book from the small shelving unit and collapse in a conveniently provided comfy armchair and read.
The objects are from the modern pop ages, (20th to 21st centuries), from a wax cylinder to that weird guitar Mick Jones played that looks like it was made from anthracite. Inspirational books and posters are mixed with lyric notes (example: I’m So Bored With You before the You became a USA), acres of VHS recordings, cassette tapes containing, apparently, demos or mix tapes. There are toys that might have survived from the original five year-old Mick’s toy box or might have been picked up since for kitsch value.
A faxed copy of a letter from someone probably counter-cultural, an American, who admits to trying to poach Paul Simenon but goes on to praise The Clash, signature unrecognisable to me (but probably a real fan would know…) and their ‘original energy’ - leaves me wondering, who? And, how the fuck did Mick manage to stop the fax from fading, which they famously do.
What is this all for? Well, it’s for me, for a start. And I am hugely appreciative of the fact that Mick Jones has kept and kept adding to this collection when my own, similar but much, much smaller collection has diminished to several crates full and even those I resent every time I move house. It’s for Cl**h fans, of course and it’s for everyone and anyone who somehow recognises that a clipping of a newspaper showing a photo of three Rwandan vicars walking a London street is as important as a plastic figurine of John Lennon holding a guitar, and that both items somehow say what history books cannot about the last one hundred years, when thrown together in a rough and ready gallery carved out of the increasingly unaccessible West End of London.
A quick word about the accompanying magazine, which is also the exhibition - collage as an exhibition, a magazine as an exhibition’s guide, a catalogue but also a fanzine. Probably collectable, if you’re a collector, but, mainly, entertainingly doing it’s best to travel that fine line of respectful fandom without falling either into a vat of cynicism or a bucket of drooling worship. Inspired and inspiring.
Essential Information
Rock & Roll Public Library Pt 1 - The Launch
Rock & Roll Public Library Pt 2 - Cruising Altitude
Rock & Roll Public Interview - In Orbit
Rock & Roll Public Library Preview
The Rock & Roll Public Library
Farsight Gallery,
4 Flitcroft Street,
London WC2H 8DJ
EXTENDED UNTIL SATURDAY MARCH 22ND
12 noon - 7pm daily
More info at www.rocknrollpl.com
