Paul Gorman

Design

New Barney Bubbles exhibition: we’re on our way

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These are the trestles stacked up in Les Subsistances gallery in Chaumont, France, awaiting delivery of the exhibits for my show Barney Bubbles: The Past, The Present & The Possible, which is part of the group show White Noise: Quand le graphisme fait du bruit opening on May 26.

The exhibits arrive in France today, so the install  is underway.

White Noise, co-curated by Sophie Demay and Etienne Hervy, coincides with Chaumont’s 23rd International Poster & Graphic Design Festival.

Read more about it here.

British Posters: Advertising Art & Activism

//Kiss Kiss, Go To Work On An Egg, Christopher Logue + Tom Salter, 1968.//
//Go To Work On An Egg, Mather & Crowther, 1964.//

“People do love huge pieces of paper”.

So runs the quote heading up a section in V&A curator Catherine Flood’s excellent overview British Posters: Advertising Art & Activism, published by the museum to coincide with its multifarious design celebrations this Olympic year.

And it’s true. We do.

Or we all did, when this vital form was simultaneously a mass-medium and a highly personal communications device, when huge promotional budgets and lack of urban controls resulted in the accretive papering of our street-scapes. Meanwhile, behind closed doors, we gave posters pride of place on the walls of our bedrooms, bedsits and sitting rooms.

//Top left: Your Britain, Fight For It Now, Abram Games, 1942. Right: Keep Death Off The Road, Carelessness Kills, William Little, 1949.//

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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.

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Lloyd Johnson exhibition install day 1: Kensington Market shop frontage recreated

Lloyd Johnson exhibition install: Day 1.

The installation of the the Lloyd Johnson exhibition got off to a flying start yesterday.

The key piece – a reconstruction of the 80s frontage of Johnson’s Kensington Market boutique – was made and put in place by the crack team headed by Rod Holt at Mojo Creative Productions.

“I had the three pieces of glass signage in storage,” says Johnson. “I gave those to Rod with a photograph from back in the day and he and his guys pulled off a major triumph by putting it together.”

Johnny "Mono" Graham, Johnson's Kensington Market, 80s.
Original fascia: Johnny "Mono" Graham outside Johnson's Kensington Market 1980s. Photographer unknown.

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“Serious tailoring”: Derek Morten

Derek Morton, Paul Smith Japan A/W2011
//Paul Smith Collection, A/W 2011.//

Thanks to Julian Morey for alerting me to these splendid photographs of Paul Smith designer Derek Morten in clothes from the company’s autumn/winter 2011 collection.

Morten has worked with Smith since the mid-70s and is currently head of the label’s menswear division for Japan.

Derek Morton Paul Smith Japan A/W 2011.
//Paul Smith Collection, A/W 2011.//

A thoroughly nice chap, Morten is also self-deprecating and reserved, as I discovered when I interviewed him recently for the Tommy Roberts book (he designed menswear for Roberts’ extraordinary Covent Garden outlet City Lights Studio).

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Ideal Home: Biba beans + biscuit tins + wallpaper by David Bowie + Barney Bubbles

Biba tin of baked beans
Can of Biba own-brand baked beans. Packaging design: Whitmore-Thomas Partnership, 1973.

Chelsea Space director Donald Smith has invited me to contribute items from my design collection to his forthcoming show Ideal Home, which features the work of more than 50 artists and designers spanning 1913 to 2011.

Continue reading Ideal Home: Biba beans + biscuit tins + wallpaper by David Bowie + Barney Bubbles