Clapton's Aussie mate recalls wild London http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/09/19/1221331198859.html
Paola Totaro September 20, 2008 THEY were a group of young tearaways, flatmates during the swinging '60s when London was the place to be. On Thursday night, at the Aussie-owned Jane England gallery in Notting Hill, two of the rebels, Eric Clapton and Melbourne filmmaker Philippe Mora, took a gentle walk down memory lane to a time when Australians seemed to be "everywhere, moving and shaking in fine arts, music and theatre, in conventional, avant garde and counter culture … a combined outburst of Australian creativity hitting foreign shores". The occasion was the opening of a retrospective of Mora's painting and drawing. Clapton, looking more a bespectacled banker than legendary rock god, laughed as he reminisced about the share house in the legendary "Pheasantry", the bohemian mansion in the King's Road, Chelsea, shared too by Arthur Boyd. "I fell in love with this character. He offered to share a lease on The Pheasantry and I thought it was just him and me but it wasn't … and then I saw this character kind of skulking around the kitchen and realised there was more to it than met the eye and, well, you know, it kind of just turned into a knocking shop for a little while," he said. The young Mora was part of the Australian exodus that included Barry Humphries, Germaine Greer, Clive James, Richard Neville, Robert Hughes, Marsha Rowe and Bruce Beresford. He first made his mark on the art scene in London after a successful and precocious exhibition in Melbourne. He began by contributing cartoons to the legendary satirical magazine Oz, and held several critically acclaimed exhibitions at the Clytie Jessop Gallery and later with Sigi Krauss. There, he sparked a scandal when an anti-Vietnam sculpture a life-size figure made from meat and placed on a bentwood chair began to rot and Princess Margaret complained about the stench while dining at a restaurant across the road. The sculpture was photographed by Angus Formes and became a cover of Time Out magazine. Clapton said the document that best told the stories of their times together was the movie Trouble in Molopolis, which stars many of the protagonists of the period, including a saucy Germaine Greer who plays a cabaret singer. "Philippe's movie that is showing downstairs … that is the document of our time … all those people in that movie for me, it was my first time producing, later, I got a go at producing sound tracks. He is a wonderful man, I'm the proud owner of three of his paintings and my kids love them . . they don't know the dark side, they think it's just naive wonderful, splendid art. Well, so do I. I am proud to be part of this opening. Enjoy the show," he said. Mora later moved to film and made several groundbreaking films, including Brother, Can You Spare a Dime and Mad Dog Morgan with Dennis Hopper, which took him to Los Angeles where he still lives. On Thursday night, just days after Damien Hirst made millions selling dead animals, Mora joked that his meat sculpture had been a metaphor for victims of war and a work you could not sell. "Most of my creative roots are in London. This is where I took off, crashed and burned and took off again. "Paraphrasing Brendan Behan, on occasion, like many artists, I was a drinker with a painting problem," he laughed. . --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sixties-L" group. To post to this group, send email to sixties-l@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sixties-l?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
