With Twin‘s imminent fourth edition all about rebellion, the time couldn’t be riper for Flash Projects’ latest pop-up photography show, Street Fighting Man: Fifty Years of Youth Protest. Recent months have seen an electric surge in youthful uprising, as the young and angry have taken to the streets in a way not seen for over a decade. From the top up fees protests in London to last week’s riot against Tesco’s in Bristol, a new generation is asserting itself in ways reminiscent of the Sixties’ student protests.

Taking its name from The Rolling Stones‘ track, Street Fighting Man, which was inspired by Mick Jagger’s experience of an anti-war demonstration in 1968, the celebrates how youth culture and media have conspired to create historic moments over the past fifty years. Bands like The Rolling Stones, whose concerts were often accompanied by riots, and The Clash were mouthpieces for fans. While photographer Caroline Coon’s pictures of punk bands The Sex Pistols and The Slits not only record a seminal scene but asserted the right to individual identity. Today, these images of the Brixton and Poll Tax riots are a reminder of how difficult times breed discontent and dissidence. Often change doesn’t come quietly, it resounds on the streets.

Street Fighting Man. 50 years of youth protest is on at Flash Projects, 5 Savile Row, W1S 3PD until the 4th June 2011.
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Tags: Brixton Riots, Caroline Coons, Flash Projects, Mick Jagger, Poll tax, Sex Pistols, Street Fighting Man, Tesco, The Clash, the rolling stones, The Slits

We are near saturation point when it comes to pop-up shops, but have an insatiable appetite for pop-up art spaces. Flash Projects is the latest photography project from the really rather good James Hyman Gallery, who consistently impress with their selection of vintage photography (take this paparazzi shot of Bridget Bardot, top). Now, the gallery will take their archive of prints on the countercultures of the Fifties through Seventies to spaces all over London with exhibitions and limited-edition sales.

Flash Projects’ delicious debut is a collaboration between photographer and artist Jean Clemmer and Franco-Spanish couturier Paco Rabanne entitled, Canned Candies The Nudes of Jean Clemmer (images above and below), a body of work originally produced in 1969. Rabanne’s wicked ‘unwearable’ fashions, crafted from unconventional materials like metal, are the perfect match for Clemmer’s hazy aesthetic. The little-known Clemmer (1926-2001) was immersed in painting, music and photography, and worked as Salvador Dali’s personal photographer for two decades.

The photographic series is seemingly bathed in a silver glow, and recalls the sci-fi spirit of  Barbarella (1968), for which Rabanne was costume designer.  Clunky chainmail get-ups deemed risqué at the time seem just as modern and fresh now (see young designer Fannie Schiavoni’s chainmail harnesses Fannieschiavoni.com). Canned Candies is a climatic collection that’s the result of an early art and high fashion clash. Invest now.

Canned Candies. The Nudes of Jean Clemmer runs from the 26th November – 18th December at Flash Projects, 8 Kingly Street, London W1B 5PG.
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Tags: Flash Projects, james hyman gallery, Jean Clemmer, Paco Rabanne