123 Bethnal Green Road Shop and Gallery, London
Zero Lubin’s
Limited Edition Framed Handkerchiefs
Now for sale at 123 Bethnal Green
123 Bethnal Green Road is a concept store and Gallery spread across 4 floors of a beautifully restored Grade II Listed building in East London. Showcasing the best of British Fashion, Art, Food & Lifestyle products they specialise in the unconventional & the undiscovered and are now displaying Zero Lubin’s Limited Edition Framed Handkerchiefs.
Zero Lubin are passionate about hankies and have built up an extensive collection. Each and every hankie is a one-off, a small glimpse of history contained in a beautiful textile. The handkerchiefs are window mounted in bespoke frames, designed to resemble 1950s utility furniture.
Eros
Trafalgar Square
London Montage
With their distinctive style, Zero Lubin re-present vintage handkerchiefs as unique artworks by embroidering them with poignant messages, inspired by memories of place, cultural events, significant historical characters and popular cinematic references.
Old Sport
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Lubin Tales by Gerry King is available at 123 Bethnal Green Road
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Burlesque Drawing Extravaganza
The Big Draw: An Evening of Burlesque
13th October at the Arlington Arts Centre
Zero Lubin invited all ladies and gentlemen with a keen eye and a sharp pencil to take part in an event of exquisite beauty made flesh, celebrating the fabulous corsetry and sensual contours of the burlesque. At this enchanting evening of ‘pulchritudinous exhibitionism’ the audience inspired and tantalised their senses by drawing the entrancing burlesque performers Poppy von Tarte and Magdalene Celeste. Drawing ability was not the focus of the evening, rather enthusiasm, invention and imagination were emphasised and rewarded with mystery prizes.
Poppy von Tarte
Magdalene Celeste
Gerry King performs a reading from Lubin Tales and poses for drawings as his character ‘The Poodle Faker’.
The Prize-winners
Arlington Arts Centre
Poppy von Tarte
Magdalene Celeste
The Hair Cut Before The Party
Reading from Lubin Tales by Gerry King
‘Something for the Weekend’ and ‘Poodle Faker’ performed at The Hair Cut Before The Party
The Hair Cut Before The Party at 26-28 Toynbee Street, Whitechapel, London is a revolutionary hair salon and project space. Open for free haircuts 12-6 Thursday to Saturday, cuts are offered for free to ‘explore other potential values within the exchange and the salon environment when financial transactions are removed’. Their ethos is that ‘hair is cut as a gesture of friendship, in a similar way to how people have their hair cut by friends or family at home’, they invite conversation to share social and political views and ideas about community and belonging.
To celebrate the opening of the Salon Reading Room, a unique project space connected to the salon, Gerry King performed two pieces from his Lubin Tales, an extraordinary collection of short fictions that incorporate photo-collage and linguistic invention into their tales of provincial misdeeds..
Thehaircutbeforetheparty
Thehaircutbeforetheparty
Thehaircutbeforetheparty
Exhibition
‘I want to make memories with you’
The Silk Museum, Macclesfield – Aug 13th to 8th Oct
A unique exhibition showcasing the tradition of the commemorative handkerchief
A collaboration between artists Zero Lubin and The Silk Museum, Macclesfield.
From the 1900s to the 1970s Macclesfield was one of the major towns in the UK producing handkerchiefs. The Silk Museum in Macclesfield holds an extensive collection of archive material from this period for all the local textile industry. It is therefore the perfect host for this exhibition, celebrating the tradition of the commemorative handkerchief.
‘I want to make memories with you’ will display a collection of framed vintage souvenir handkerchiefs embroidered by Zero Lubin, alongside commemorative crêpe silk handkerchiefs selected by them from the Museum archive.
Two artists, Louise Burston and Gerry King formed the Zero Lubin Company early in 2009. They are renowned for their playful and irreverent card series and books and have now turned their attention to the tradition of souvenir and commemorative handkerchiefs. With a distinctive style, typically described as kitsch and edgy, they embroider vintage handkerchiefs with poignant messages, inspired by memories of place, cultural events, significant historical characters and popular cinematic references. This juxtaposition of text and image evokes diverse interpretations for the viewer and highlights the handkerchief as an historical and cultural treasure, resonant with meaning.
All Zero Lubin artwork is for sale – for more information on the handkerchiefs, the books and the cards please visit
Blood, Sweat and Tears
If you watch the classic 1950 Otto Preminger noir thriller: Where the Sidewalk Ends, filmed on the rain-slicked streets of New York, it is evident that only the main players benefit from the use of a handkerchief; a prop as important as a skull in a Shakespearian tragedy.
The corrupt cop, played by Dana Andrews, utilises a neatly folded handkerchief to wipe blood from a cut eye, while his chief of detectives, during a heated exchange involving the issue of police brutality, pulls a billowing handkerchief from his pocket to mop the sweat from his brow.
The beguiling beauty Gene Tierney is the love interest and in a scene of high drama that nearly leads to a kissing episode she breaks into racking sobs that only abate when she gently dabs the tears from her eyes with her dainty handkerchief.
by Gerry King
August 2011
August 2011
Reviews
Selvedge Magazine 2 August 2011
Cheshire Life September 2011
Blow or Show?
We welcome your comments.
Zero Lubin Occurrences
8th April Reading from Lubin Tales by Gerry King at The Wapping Project Bookshop
On 8th April 2011 Gerry King performed at The Wapping Project Bookshop from his eclectic and frequently hilarious collection of short fictions, ‘Lubin Tales’, reading pieces that are quintessentially British in their determination to find humour in the seedy and downbeat.An independent bookshop, The Wapping Project specialises in art, photography and new fiction. A glasshouse by day, it transforms into a lighthouse of reading, talking and discovery by night.
thewappingprojectbookshop.com
Jan 27th 2011 Babington House, Somerset
Library Reading at Babington House of Lubin Tales, written and performed by Gerry King
Jan 17th 2011 Burlesque Drawing Evening
LUBIN TALES
Reviews for Lubin Tales by Gerry King and Louise Burston
The Poodle Faker
Review Nude Magazine
Patrick Wray review for
Nude Magazine
November 2010 Winter Issue
Lubin Tales by Gerry King
“This is a welcome reissue of a curious collection of micro fictions, beautifully presented in the style of a Ladybird book. In it, the enigmatic Zero Lubin takes us on a tour of ‘small town debauchery and intercontinental dubious intent’. Fact and fiction are intertwined in stories that evoke some eternally rainy afternoon in a seaside town.
At times these stories recall the hidden histories of Iain Sinclair relocated to Weston Super mare or Torquay but, whereas Sinclair’s books are dense and sprawling, writer/artist Gerry King packs everything into short bursts, full of surreal observations and deadpan humour. King has a wonderful talent for evoking the past by combining pop culture references (‘watching Magpie anyone?) with accounts of true events all the while never letting the truth get in the way of a good yarn.
The text often has a scattergun structure that is no doubt rooted in King’s background in performance poetry; ‘she was svelte, sexy sensation-seeking scorpio – worked as a nurse and liked to get her fingers into the ward trolley for the dolly mixtures. He was a borderline-functioning, chemically-dependent criminal creative with interests in Brixton and Totnes’.
The closest literary connections to King’s style are poets like John Cooper Clarke and John Hegley and like those writers; Gerry King has an idiosyncratic take on life that is all his own. Lubin Tales introduces us to a cast of characters from the forgotten corners of British life such as the ‘Poodle Faker’ (pictured as a man with a poodle head in one of the book’s many memorable illustrations). King has actually performed dressed as the poodle faker (complete with poodle mask) during several live shows based on Lubin Tales; a spectacle so sinister it makes the characters from The League of Gentleman seem cuddly by comparison.
Inside the cultural bric-a-brac and holiday snapshots there is a dark and macabre subtext at work, but it is the tender moments that shine through the most. The glamorous mother of a school friend is recalled in ‘The Poodle Faker’, the moving story of ‘Paul the Continental Barber’ in ‘Something for the Weekend’; a story that is both sad and hilarious. Elsewhere, titles like ‘It’s Hard to be a Good Man and a Good Thief Too’ are worth the price alone.
Lubin Tales is a highly accomplished debut, and with warring factions Will Self and Stewart Home in agreement that Lubin is a winner; it might just be that it is a cult classic in the making. In the meantime, a collection of Zero Lubin greetings cards is also available in shops”.
Patrick Wray
November 9th 2010 Laura Cerwinske writes:
WHAT I’VE FIGURED OUT ABOUT PUBLISHING: NOW and NEXT…
“A great example of a purely self-published project is a delightful book I learned about on the internet that was produced by a photographer/designer/ illustrator team in the UK, Gerry King and Louise Burston, who formed a company called Zero Lubin to produce and market their art and books. Gerry King’s Lubin Tales draws us in “a world of small town debauchery and intercontinental dubious intent.” Take a look at www.zerolubin.org. Everything about their effort is distinctive, edgy, whimsical, and highly professional. And they are very responsive to personal inquiry”.
READ MORE: http://www.lauraputsout.blogspot.com/
http://eightcuts.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/zero-lubin/
September 24 2010 Dan Holloway writes:
Zero Lubin describe themselves as “a colourful yet precarious wonderland of intriguing characters and places. In a universe reminiscent of the charm of curio shops, caravan holidays and the garish colours of 50s advertising, we meet dubious characters who illustrate a powerful and enduring nostalgia for a bygone age, yet also highlight with exquisite subtlety, nuances of contemporary society.”
Hmm so the 50s thing sounds a bit too cool for us here, but actually this is more kitsch than cool. And kitsch I love. Zero Lubin remind me in that way of one of my absolute fave bands, The Candle Thieves - all Fisher Price keyboards and lyrics about death. There’s a playfulness to them -their shop sells kitsch sloganned handkerchiefs, and one of the people behind the collective has an alter ego called the Poodle Faker – that’s just on the Ira Levin side of sickly sweet.
There’s also a book – Gerry King’s Lubin Tales, available direct or from Foyle’s and in a special edition – all of which are things we heartily approve of. There are quotations about it from some people who are deeply cool. But there’s also a quotation from Will Self which puts them firmly back in the field of kitsch. The actual physical book is very different from the jpeg – far from shiny and garish, what we have is a beautifully produced Ladybird-style hardback, whose slightly off-kilter illustrations share that 50s colour quality. The tales themselves, which King urges (we concur) should be recited aloud, are surreal little gems. The stand-out is Poodle Faker, a kind of Updike on acid deconstruction of the Marks and Sparks cardiganed caravaneer, who speaks like something from Twin Peaks. “If my thoughts were hand cream, I’d ring more often,” he greets us, elaborating when his interlocutor wants to know wtf “Oh, it’s just a saying I collected from one of my Barbaras.” Brilliant.
But what appeals most, as with The Candle Thieves, and Gupter Puncher, is that here is a group that has created a world of their own and fully inhabit it. I do hear you – yes you, you at the back of the room – shouting Mighty Boosh. But seriously, these guys don’t come from Camden. Or Hoxton. And that’s worth a lot these days. It’s the difference between cool and sucking or kitsch and rocking.
“Just because someone is related to a war poet doesn’t make them trustworthy” Gerry King
- September 1, 2010 – 10:18 am | 11 Comments
November 2009 Alice Revel writes:
“To enter into the surreal world of Gerry King and his Lubin Tales is to penetrate a colourful wonderland of absurd and intriguing people and places. King is also known as Dr Zero Lubin, “cyber flâneur and trained observer of the spectacle”. The universe he creates in this entertaining pocket-sized book of micro-fictions is reminiscent of the charm of curio shops and the garish colours of Martin Parr’s photographs”. SEE MORE
November 2009 thisisSouthDevon
‘A life and work inspired by dad, a barber’s chair and fifties music icon’
Zero Lubin Occurrences 2009-2010
Vintage at Goodwood
You know how inaugural events linger? The pride, nostalgia, (and envy) lasts for years, and decades to come. Woodstock, the first Glastonbury, the Sex Pistols gig at the 100 club…too many to list, but if you were there you know what we are talking about. Vintage’s 1st year is going to have this kind of mystique.
The Zero Lubin booth at Vintage at Goodwood, August 2010
goodwood.co.uk/vintage-at-goodwood
2009 Zero Lubin appearances
October 23rd Arnolfini, Bristol
November 12th Pallant House, Chichester, West Sussex
November 19th Arlington Art Centre, Newbury
November 26th Borders, Brighton
December 3rd The Jago Gallery, 77 Redchurch St, E2 7DJ, London
December 17th Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth
LUBIN TALES
A 64-page hardback, pocket-sized collection of beautifully illustrated short stories and musings by artist and performer Gerry King
LUBIN TALES
AUTHOR: GERRY KING
Retail Price: £10.00 ISBN: 978-0-9563077-0-5
Binding: Hardback Illustrations: Colour and B&W
64 pages, 162mm x 114mm (portrait)
Publication date: 14th September 2009
Published by Lubin Publishing
Distributed by Central Books orders@centralbooks.com
£30.00 (retail price) @www.zerolubin.org
Exhibition 2009
‘In To Land’, Arlington Arts Centre, Newbury
Showcasing a collection of works by artists exploring our relationship with cultural and physical landscapes through contemporary practice
‘The 1947 V-12 Lincoln’
Limited Edition Artists Book and Installation
I take a flight from Bristol, England to Grenoble, France to stay with a close friend, Marie Helene. The previous couple of months had been difficult, my stepmother had died, my father was in hospital, a long-term relationship ended and I was unemployed. My Dad was later to move into a residential care home.
I sent dad a postcard while I was away.
Dad told me he often wonders who is in the mirror. Sometimes I know he is lost to the havoc of age – not raging but sleeping into occasional cruel dreams of agility and firm ardour. We have points of reference that we both understand but are closed to others; he asked me if I remembered Monica Rose from a 1960s game show: Hughie Green’s cheeky cockney assistant. I said of course, and mentioned she had become a born-again Christian. Dad went quiet for a while puffing his cigar, then said ‘You went to America with me, I took you to America when you were a boy’. I know he did. I remember Dad and I on a guided tour bus going through China Town, December 1968. A lady took a photo of us with a tiny spy camera. I remember the snow in New York City. My Uncle Brian had a Buick with big clunking doors. My Auntie Edna had a white toy poodle called Charlie. I thought it was un-American.
Grenoble, near the village my friend lives, has something of the Portmeirion about it. I liked riding the egg-shaped cable cars that go to and from La Bastille. I was at peace suspended above the river, going up and down with no responsibility. I welcomed this gentle distraction.
I remember the French February days as cold and bright. Cold enough to encourage me to go to the local Emmaus and buy a violet and purple nylon ski suit. My friend Marie Helene later took photographs of me in this outfit posing by her blue Peugeot with the Vercors massif providing a magnificent backdrop. Between the tasks of the everyday we would walk Mr. Haruki it was on one these walks after calling at Muumuu’s that Marie Helene introduced me the Lincoln.
I would spend hours looking at the Lincoln taking photographs and salvaging small items. The history of the car slowly unfolded through Marie Helene’s acquaintances and friends in the small community.
‘The 1947 V-12 Lincoln’ installation
Poodle Faker
A Series 244 Volvo with faded burgundy paintwork is parked close to a potting shed. I pull into the narrow weed-tufted driveway and almost immediately Clive the Poodle Faker appears. He stands in the doorway with the hyper-intense air of a potential violent suicide; I could picture him falling backwards from the parapet of a French-engineered suspension bridge, arms outstretched like a John Lewis Jesus. A tired grey Bovey Tracy bungalow shows blistering render and rusty drainpipes, the type of dwelling to draw the attention of unscrupulous doorstep merchants driving tired Transit vans, advertising on magnetic signs their Acme business pay-as-you-go number. The type of transient trader who when paid in cash smells the notes for clues of concealment. The bungalow suggests pelmets, small Wade figurines and the scratch marks of departed cats. It had indeed originally belonged to Clive’s Auntie Pamela, a compulsive knitter, spinster and volunteer.
I have never known an easy Clive; every Clive I’ve met was trammelled and had bony hands. Particular names appear to attract certain qualities. I cite Vivienne and Wendy as strong examples. Clive reminded me of a boy I went to school with called Paul Pendle. Paul had been born old. I saw him many years later, when he was in his forties, wearing council uniform overalls and tending a bowling green in Paignton. It looked like he had arrived. It was perfect. I remember he dithered as a youth and now he emanated the air of a gracefully moving bowling-green expert – placing pellets, stepping softly.
As we go through to the lounge I notice Clive is shod with highly polished brown brogues, wearing well-pressed tweed trousers and a duck-egg blue sleeveless cardigan. Clive is in context but he does not dither. He points to the rotary dial telephone, saying: ‘If my thoughts were hand cream I would ring more often.’ As I sit down in a green velvet 1950s Zanuso armchair I asked him what he means by the comment. ‘Oh, it’s just a saying I collected from one of my Barbaras.’
Clive always refers to his women friends as Barbaras. Apparently his latest Barbara possesses a remnant of Isadora Duncan’s fateful scarf and drives an original red Fiat 500. He tells me he had met her at the autumn fair held in the local community centre. She had been selling copies of her self-published romantic novella entitled: The Amorous Butcher’s Love Slate – a torrid tale of passion amongst sawdust, dead beasts and the cold metal of mincing machines.
Clive could be regarded as a man who spends too much time in the society of women, engaging in such activities as tea dances and séances – events that actually occur more often than one would think in this day and age.
Whilst it all sounds flippantly amusing, let us not lose sight of Clive the Poodle Faker poised on the parapet of the suspension bridge. Oh yes, there exists a very real feyness, a loneliness within this man and within this bungalow of someone else’s life. I notice that when Clive speaks he moves one of his hands, fingers pointing vertically, in an up and down fluttering motion, like an absolution. I have seen this mannerism before; the American filmmaker David Lynch has the very same habit.
I ask Clive why he is attracted to older women. He tells me that he felt he’d always left things too late and being in the company of ‘Barbaras’ gives him the sense of a head start. I can’t tell if he is serious or not. He flicks the tassels of a brilliantly coloured shade on a turned-wood stand, points to a Cadillac-fronted Bakelite radio and then elaborates:
“When I was a schoolboy I had a friend whose mother was the mistress of a successful bookmaker. I would often go round to their flat – it was above an antique shop. She had flame-red hair and smoked Embassy cigarettes that she theatrically lit with a heavy Dunhill lighter. I always thought she was like a lady in a glossy magazine. There was glamour about her, but I didn’t know what it was: the lipstick-stained cigarette ends in the Johnny Walker ashtray, the perfume and the high heels. What clinched it for me was she listened to Radio Four. I’d never heard it before. She wore small pearl earrings and poodle brooches with diamanté eyes. I can never remember eating anything when I visited. We listened to plays on the radio, where I heard things like: “Fix yourself a drink while I get ready.” There was always a promise of something – suitcases with travel tags, French windows, car doors slamming, tinkling glasses and RP endearments. This woman opened possibilities that I could not name at the time but they stayed with me. She was that older woman and for me she was never a mother.”
