Pop Art: Why Do Rock Icons Keep Making Exhibitions of Themselves?



They are the byword for cool. In the history of rock music Pink Floyd have never lost their sixties credentials for innovation, experimentation, psychedelia, stunning album art and mesmerizing light shows at their gigs. Their surviving members still tour and exhibit all these qualities.

So what exactly are they doing in a museum?

For that is where they are heading. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has put tickets on sale for a major Pink Floyd exhibition entitled Their Mortal Remains for next year.

The band is of course following in the footsteps of the arguably even cooler icon, the late David Bowie. The V&A had an exhibition David Bowie is at the same venue in 2013. It was so successful, both critically and (perhaps more importantly financially) that it inspired The Rolling Stones to exhibit their career story this year in an exhibition wryly titled Exhibitionism at London’s Saatchi gallery.

This meeting of art, music and mammon is arriving in New York next month and then onto Sydney in 2018.

Instagram Photo

To be sure, there were memorable moments in both the Bowie and Stones’ exhibitions. The music, of course, in both cases was a plus and there were great videos of historic performances and interviews, and stunning costumes from Bowie’s back pages. In the Stones’ exhibition there was a diverting recreation of their early London flat, complete with assorted squalor including empty bottles, cigarette ends, weeks of washing-up and unmade beds. Most memorably there was a room offering a 3D performance of a segment of a concert with Mick singing ‘Satisfaction.’

Memorable moments, though one also had some sympathy with The Guardian’s critic who wrote that “if there’s anyone in the world fascinated to see a Vox bass amp just because it belonged to Bill Wyman, then they are a more dedicated student of bass amps than me.”

But one suspects that Jagger was not just interested in sharing his and the band’s  memories and amps. The financial rewards of an exhibition that could tour the world for years, with eye-boggling prices for tickets and merchandising, are immense. Tickets for the Stones Saatchi exhibition were £19 Monday to Thursday and £21 Friday and Saturday (Pink Floyd will beat that with tickets costing £20-£24).

See also  IN THE RED: Harvard Endowment Lost $2 Billion In FY 2016

The V&A’s Bowie exhibition generated £3.6m in merchandising sales just from the London run. Presumably such returns enticed the Stones to include among the Saatchi merchandising such rock ’n’roll items as a Pringle sweater with the Stones’ lips insignia for £420 and officially endorsed pyjamas for £285

We don’t know yet about the merchandising for the Pink Floyd exhibition. But one can speculate a little from what is already on offer at the V&A shop to accompany yet another music-related exhibition this autumn You Say You Want A Revolution? Records and Rebels 1966-1970.  A signed screen print by the original designers of the poster for the UFO club in London where indeed Pink Floyd  played some of their earliest gigs will set you back £250.

But in case you feel that such extravagance is rather removed not just from the once anarchic and innovative nature of the band, but from the nature and purpose of a museum, fear not. The V&A shop helpfully reminds us that “Every purchase supports the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.”

The rewards will continue well beyond London.  As well the Rolling Stones’ Exhibitionism opening at Industria in New York City’s West Village just off the Highline in November, and then Australia in 2018, the David Bowie exhibition has already been at the Museum of Contemporary art in Chicago and its long world tour will hit Japan next year. Pink Floyd will doubtless soon be announcing more venues.

In recent years we’ve had museum music-themed displays ranging from the Pet Shop Boys at London’s National Portrait Gallery to a heavy metal retrospective at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. Presently Punk 1976-78 is attracting punters to the British Library.

See also  Wikileaks Turns 10: Julian Assange’s Most Devastating Leaks From the Past Decade

I was at the gala opening of The Rolling Stones exhibition at the Saatchi gallery, attended by the band. In the room showing the colorful dandyesque Carnaby Street costumes the Stones wore in their pomp, I bumped into drummer Charlie Watts and asked him if he remembered those outlandish clothes. “Yeah I remember them,” he said, “but I didn’t always like them”, which at least was a suitably downbeat reply from the downbeat star to prick the overblown nature of the occasion.

Of course, there are arguments that can be given to justify the marriage of music and museums. Geoffrey Marsh, co-curator of the Bowie exhibition, said at the time: “This museum was set up to show how art and design work, to reveal the process. Although there have been a huge number of books about Bowie, they are by rock journalists and may not be of interest to the general public. The reason he is interesting is that he is more than a rock star.”

Instagram Photo

So, are Pink Floyd, certainly according to the blurb for the forthcoming exhibition. It describes: “an immersive, multi-sensory and theatrical journey through Pink Floyd’s extraordinary world. A story of sound, design and performance, the exhibition will chronicle the music, iconic visuals and staging of the band, from the underground psychedelic scene in 1960s London to the present day, illustrating their groundbreaking use of special effects, sonic experimentation, powerful imagery and social commentary.”

And to give it the requisite academic authority, Martin Roth, Director of the V&A, said: “The V&A is perfectly placed to exhibit the work of a band that is as recognisable for its unique visual imagery as for its music. Pink Floyd is an impressive and enduring British design story of creative success. Alongside creating extraordinary music, they have for over five decades been pioneers in uniting sound and vision, from their earliest 1960s performances with experimental light shows, through their spectacular stadium rock shows, to their consistently iconic album covers. The exhibition will locate them within the history of performance, design and musical production by presenting and complementing the material from Pink Floyd’s own archive with the V&A’s unrivalled collections in architecture, design, graphics and literature”.

See also  Michael Rosenbaum Does Impressions, Sings, and Talks “Impastor”

Perhaps an equally insightful comment comes from Pink Floyd drummer and co-founder Nick Mason, who says that the exhibition is a tribute to the band’s unexpected longevity. “It’s the fact that we still sort of exist and we still seem to interest people after 50 years in an industry that was seen as entirely ephemeral by all of us when we first started.”

So as well all that ‘unique visual imagery’ it’s also a sense of wonder that they’re still going.

In an age in which the music industry is in turmoil and even the likes of The Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd feel the need to explore new commercial avenues, the appeal of an exhibition with its own world tour is obvious.

But it comes with a risk. Rock was certainly, as Nick Mason says, once seen as ephemeral. It no longer is, but it is still — rightly or wrongly—  seen as rebellious, as faintly anarchic.

That is why I remain a little queasy about these exhibitions. It’s not that fans won’t enjoy them, it’s more that putting the work of the pioneers of rock and artrock in a museum stultifies it, almost turns the pomp into pomposity, and most of all removes the essential ingredient of great rock music — excitement.

img_0109

tags:
On this topic: ( from category )

    Leave feedback

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    *
    *

    seven − six =

    Top