Magick Is Freedom! (After Barney Bubbles) opens in London this week
When I first saw it I was questioning a lot of things, not least my adequacy. Things like inspiration, influences, references . . . where do things come from? Copying things—not as “homage'”or “pastiche”, but dying to get inside a thing. Inhabit it. Nostalgia too. Using machines. Colour. Systems. Perpetual motion. Automatism. Copying things. Graham Wood on Existence Is Unhappiness.
This week sees the London opening of Magick Is Freedom! (After Barney Bubbles), an exhibition of the series of prints made by designer Graham Wood in response to Existence Is Unhappiness, the fold-out poster for the 12th issue of underground magazine Oz published in May 1968 and designed by Barney Bubbles with Sid Squeak and others.
//Framed Existence Is Unhappiness, currently on display at Paul Smith’s store in Albemarle Street, central London. Photo: Nina Sologubenko//
Magick Is Freedom! was previously shown in Stockholm in 2012; along with Bubbles, Wood cites a number of influences present in the 23 prints, from “the Marx Brothers to Aleister Crowley and Jack Parsons to John Keel; W. G. Sebald to Von Daniken to Leary and Cormac McCarthy; Schoenberg to Eno to Tarkovsky to Jarry to Blake to Graves and Dee; Lovecraft, Jung and Baudelaire”. Wood talked to me about the genesis of the series in this post. The show is at Red Gallery from June 6 to Jun 2o. Details here.