Let punk make your day
How odd it might have once seemed to have punk relics exhibited in the pristine white space of a gallery. But this is exactly where you'll find the original words of Pretty Vacant, penned by Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock, on a page torn from an exercise book.
You'll also find Vivienne Westwood's bondage tops and Jamie Reid's iconic Never Mind The Bollocks graphics (in one never-used version, the Queen has swastika eyes).
For punk, just read the Sex Pistols, as this exhibition isn't concerned with the movement's other players.
In a collection of memorabilia built up by art dealer Paul Stolper and Andrew Wilson of Art Monthly magazine, you can see how Malcolm McLaren's arty pretensions brilliantly promoted the band, including an Oliver Twist Manifesto scrawled over a Cruickshank illustration, likening Johnny Rotten et al to Dickensian street urchins.
As a backdrop, we get Rotten's elastic vocals livening up the mausoleum atmosphere. Punk is dead but it lives on everywhere.
Until Jan 23, The Hospital, 24 Endell Street WC2, Mon to Sat 10am to 10pm, Sun noon to 8pm, £6, £4 concs. Tel: 020 7170 9100. Tube: Covent Garden
