Sleazenation

Sleazenation was a monthly London based fashion and lifestyle magazine printed by Swinstead Publishing. It was given away for free to clubbers for one and a half years until its launch in 1996 as a high street magazine.^[1] It featured bands and artists ranging from underground luminaries such as Genesis P-Orridge^[2] to pop acts such as New Order.^[3]

Editorial and Photography

The founding editor was Steve Beale, who left in 1999 to work at EMAP on The Face and Arena. Subsequent editors were Stuart Turnbull, Steve Slocombe, and Neil Boorman. The artist Alexander de Cadenet was the Art Editor from 1997-1999 and featured a series of interviews with significant visual artists of the time. The magazine closed at the end of 2003 and was relaunched shortly afterwards as "Sleaze" magazine. The magazine was an early champion of influential photographers including Ewen Spencer and Jonathan de Villiers, particularly through the black and white, documentary-style photography of nightlife which used to accompany the club listings.

During its tenure Sleazenation worked with a number of well-known art directors such as Stephen Male (who helped mould the face of i-D magazine in the 1980s), Nick Booth, Guerilla 6, Stephen Duffy and Richard Hart although it is Scott King's time at the magazine which helped solidify the magazine in many people's minds. During his tenure the magazine adopted the slogan, "An ideal for living through fashion, art, music and design".

Scott King's "Cher Guevara" cover^[4] from the February 2001 issue won several magazine awards and was featured in the Barbican exhibition 'Communicate: Independent British Graphic Design since the Sixties'. He also contributed cover headlines such as "Now even more superficial/Over 100 pages of hype & lies" and "Absolute sell out". Other artists included Banksy who contributed to the July issue of 2000.^[5]
The re-invigorated 'Sleaze' came under the art direction of Richard Hart but only lasted 4 issues before being closed down. The former editor Neil Boorman and former music editor Stuart Turnbull went on to run free London bi-monthly magazine 'Good for Nothing' which ran for 8 issues before closing around the end of 2005.

Sleazenation had an attendant picture library, PYMCA (Photographic Youth Music & Culture Archive). This was overseen by Steve Lazarides, who would go on to manage Banksy.^[6]

References