onionbagblog

My laugh-a-minute summer reading list for this year included the autobiography of a Soho junkie male prostitute who created BAD art whenever he wasn’t shooting up.

I can’t wait for the follow up.

But sadly that ‘ain’t gonna happen. Sebastian Horsley, the Soho Dandy in the Underworld, died of a drugs overdose the very same week that a West End production of his life took to the stage.

Talk about dramatic timing.

By all accounts - and the book is the only account - it was quite a life. It’s an incredibly painful, voyeuristic and bloody glimpse into the life of Soho addiction and seediness. The road to fulfilment is through self-abuse.

Sex, drugs and BAD art.

I think I’ll stick to cycling.

There is a second chance to soak up the BAD art of Sebastian Horsley at The Outsiders gallery along Berwick Street with a retrospective of Seb’s work. Make sure you take the correct entrance - a glamour model advertises her services with a fading day-glow sign in the doorway close to the exhibition entrance.

Art imitating life, etc.

You need to approach The Outsiders exhibition understanding that Modern Art is Rubbish. The myth of the tortured artist is far more appealing.

And tortured yer man certainly was. Transfixed by crucifixion, much of the grand imagery on show is centred on the subject of the cross.

Live the dream, dahhhling - the logical conclusion for the cross fixation was for Sebastian Horsley to be crucified in a public art experiment in August 2000 in the Philippines. Youtube footage of this is available online. I haven’t viewed this, and would rather not link, given the gruesome description of the almost botched artistic endeavour in the book.

Outsiders does include a photo of Seb as he is about to take to the cross. This is positioned perfectly with a portrait of the artist next to his 36 skulls set out like a child’s puzzle. The originals are also on show.

Elsewhere around the two floors and grand, foreboding dark swirls make up much of the exhibition. These are portrayed next to the paradox of golden sunflowers.

Plus the now legendary This is Not a Brothel sign that was displayed on the front door of Seb’s Soho flat.

Truth, fiction etc.

Or even crucifixion.

It’s the way he hangs them.