Paul Gorman

Barney Bubbles

Next exhibition: White Noise in Chaumont May 26 – June 10

//Build-your-own poster adverts for Elvis Costello's My Aim Is True in music papers published July 1977.//

Selection has started on the Barney Bubbles presence at this summer’s group exhibition about the visual language of music, White Noise: Quand le graphisme fait du bruit (When graphics make the noise) at the 23rd International Poster & Graphic Design Festival in Chaumont, France, from May 26 to June 10.

I have supplied the text for the catalogue and last week met co-curator Sophie Demay to start the exhibit selection; Sophie is creating White Noise with Étienne Hervy, the Chaumont festival artistic director and former editor of French graphics magazine Etapes.

Continue reading Next exhibition: White Noise in Chaumont May 26 – June 10

Monster V&A design book: Bubbles, Hirst, The Queen + Bowie get special treatment…but where’s Malcolm?

British Design from 1948: Innovation in the Modern Age

British Design From 1948: Innovation In The Modern Age – the new book accompanying the forthcoming show at the V+A – is a bumper edition: 400 pages weighing in at 5lbs.

It’s cheering to see Barney Bubbles’ design Ian Dury With Love granted upfront prominence; the poster is in select company given special treatment by the book’s designer, Barnbrook’s Daniel Streat. The others are: Cecil Beaton’s 1953 coronation portrait of The Queen, a shot of Damien Hirst’s Notting Hill restaurant Pharmacy and Brian Duffy’s Aladdin Sane portrait of David Bowie.

Barney Bubbles' Ian Dury poster treated by Jonathan Barnbrook

Continue reading Monster V&A design book: Bubbles, Hirst, The Queen + Bowie get special treatment…but where’s Malcolm?

SXSW installations: The look of music


If you’re in Austin TX – and there’s a chance you might be since hundreds of thousands of people have descended on the city for the annual SXSW film/music/interactive conflab taking place there this week – try and nip along to the Ray Ban Legendary Visions house at 78 Rainey Street on the eastside for a gander at the room collages/installations I have engineered to reflect my take on the look of music.

Continue reading SXSW installations: The look of music

Ian Dury With Love: Barney Bubbles back at the V&A

Ian Dury With Love, 60in x 40in poster for the 1977 Live Stiffs tour, designed by Barney Bubbles.
Ian Dury With Love, 60in x 40in poster, 1977.

I sourced this incredible large-scale Barney Bubbles-designed poster from a private collection for the V&A’s forthcoming exhibition British Design: 1948-2012.

Chris Breward, co-curator with Ghislaine Wood, credits my 2010 exhibition Process (which focused on Bubbles’ working practices) for having persuaded the V&A to foreground the work of the late graphic designer in the new show.

Continue reading Ian Dury With Love: Barney Bubbles back at the V&A

Derek Boshier: From Doris To Chemical Cowboys, Chelsea College Of Art January 18

Pauline's Gone Digital (for Pauline Boty), Derek Boshier, 2011.
Pauline's Gone Digital (for Pauline Boty), Derek Boshier, 2011. Diptych, 5' x 10'. Acrylic on canvas from the series Paris Texas, Paris France, Paris Hilton.

This month’s arts calendar in London is marked by a rare treat: From Doris To Chemical Cowboys, a talk by the great British artist Derek Boshier at Chelsea College Of Art’s lecture theatre on January 18.

Los Angeles-based Boshier will be discussing recent projects as well as providing insights into earlier achievements, including his part in the Pop Art explosion of the 60s and his Texas work of the 80s.

Continue reading Derek Boshier: From Doris To Chemical Cowboys, Chelsea College Of Art January 18

Kate Moross’s Barney Bubbles mixology

Pippa Brooks has captured a section of Kate Moross’s video installation at the current Mindful Of Art exhibition.

I commissioned Kate to come up with a visual accompaniment to my DJ set at Glastonbury this summer, and am blown away by her achievement in manipulating and activating artwork by Barney Bubbles.

Read Pippa’s report from the show here.

Mindful Of Art is at the Old Vic Tunnels until Tuesday (September 27). Details here. Catch it if you can

Preview of an exhibition: Postmodernism at the V&A

Grace Jones maternity dress 1979 © Jean-Paul Goude.

Here is a selection of images from the V&A’s forthcoming exhibition Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970-1990. In pursuit of this slippery-to-define movement, curators Glenn Adamson and Jane Pavitt have settled on the defining principles of quotation and bricolage (assemblage from diverse elements).

As a result they have mixed and matched disciplines, categories and scale in their line-up of 250 exhibits, ranging from a reconstruction of Hans Hollein’s 1980 Venice Biennale facade The Presence Of The Past to graphics for record sleeves by Barney Bubbles, Neville Brody and Peter Saville.

Continue reading Preview of an exhibition: Postmodernism at the V&A