Photographs of McCoy’s sculpture, The Loved One, go on show in Los Angeles this week, as well as merch printed with McLellan’s images
- TextBelle Hutton
Artist, designer and skater Blondey McCoy has teamed up with acclaimed photographer Alasdair McLellan for a new Los Angeles-based exhibition, which opens this week. McLellan photographed McCoy’s latest artwork at the city’s Griffith Park Observatory – The Loved One, a sculpture of a crucified John ‘Plato’ Crawford, the character played by Sal Mineo in 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause, with one shoe on and wearing Jim Stark’s Harrington jacket as he is in his final moments of the film. The incredibly lifelike sculpture – rendered in silicone and intricately fleshed out with real human hairs – is a memorial of sorts, which McCoy created in an exploration of the heroic in popular culture. “It is inspired by the notion that heroes of pop culture, real or fictional, can live on in the minds of future generations, transcending the limited realm of mortality,” the artist wrote on Instagram. “Presently, it seems like living forever is a goal plenty of people share, but there’ve only ever been a handful of people who’ve achieved that mythological-archetype-like status within their own lifetimes – whose admirers’ undying loyalty and complete devotion can be likened to a religious fervour. Elvis Presley, Lady Diana Spencer and Morrissey are a few of these people.”
McLellan’s photographs of McCoy’s artwork go on display in Los Angeles and are also available to buy via a series of garments printed with the images, released through McCoy’s eponymous label Blondey. Among other pieces by McCoy printed with his previous work, T-shirts and hoodies featuring the photographs and finished with ‘Blondey x Alasdair McLellan’ are at the exhibition and pop-up shop this week. Scandal and Face to Face are two other works in the exhibition, that riff on moments from Britain’s pop cultural history: the first features an image of Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice Davies, the two teen models at the centre of 1961’s Profumo affair, superimposed with a shot of the Houses of Parliament, and the second is a five pound note, also from 1961, and shots of Viv Nicholson, who would “spend spend spend” the fortune of a football pools win that decade. Open for just a few days this week, be sure to catch McCoy’s LA show from Friday.
The Loved One by Blondey McCoy is at 2270 Venice Boulevard, Los Angeles, from May 10 – 13, 2019.
