“In graphics, in the music business at least, Barney pioneered the use of everyday objects in his work. He could see the design and the beauty in the apparently banal” Suzanne Spiro, artist
The Barney Bubbles exhibition Optics & Semantics at London gallery Rob Tufnell closes tomorrow evening; if you have a chance, do go along and enjoy the late graphic arts maestro’s unique celebrations of the mundane and workaday.
//Janette Beckman’s 1980 image of Jerry Dammers of The Specials is included with documentary and portrait photography by the likes of Jane Bown, Bill Brandt, Ian Macdonald, Colin O’Brien, Martin Parr and Jo Spence//
Curated by Christopher Bailey, creative director of sponsoring fashion brand Burberry, with Lucy Kumara Moore of bookshop Claire de Rouen and fashion/documentary photographer Alasdair McLellan, the exhibition Here We Are considers Britishness at this crucial juncture in our economic, political and social history.
//AC/DC Desk (with plug stool), Get Happy!! lightbulb poster, ‘Kill Time’ Stiff Records clock + Ian Dury Cocktail cabinet//
You wait years for a Barney Bubbles exhibition and then two come along in the space of a month.
On the heels of the mini-show of Barney Bubbles music designs at Fred Perry’s basement space in Covent Garden comes a different take on the work of the late graphics maestro.
//Left: Top in blue suede, JW Anderson for Loewe. Right: White cotton shirt and blue flared trousers, both Kenzo//
Photographer Brian Griffin rarely fails to beguile, as evinced by these portraits from a series produced with stylist Emma Clifton for architectural/design/fashion magazine Disegno earlier this year.
//Olympia Le-Tan handbag based on artwork for The Damned's 1977 LP Music For Pleasure, with promotional t-shirt for Fred Burns' documentary Johnny Moped Basically using 1978 lightbulb design//
So potent is the creative legacy of the graphic design master Barney Bubbles – who died on this day 30 years ago – that he is continually cited as an inspiration by contemporary visual communicators, while his name and work is attached to all manner of endeavours.
Recently, Bubbles artworks were chosen by the French fashionista Olympia Le-Tan to lead her exclusive collection of handbags. Meantime Tokyo lifestyle label retaW has named a range of fragrance products “Barney*” in celebration of “the many album covers he was responsible for in the 70s and 80s”.
//Barney* products named after Bubbles by Japanese lifestyle company retaW//