(1888PressRelease)
April 25, 2006 - Named after Martin Sharp's sensational 1967 Jimi Hendrix poster, The Movie Poster Art Gallery presents a unique selling exhibition of rare original rock music posters and pop posters.
The advertising campaigns behind record releases and the promotion of bands is one of popular music's most creative offshoots, but also one of the least well known and most under-appreciated. Over the decades a wealth of often anonymous graphic design talent has powerfully shaped the public image of singers, bands and even whole record companies. The anarchic work of Jamie Reid for the Sex Pistols, the industrial-classical pastiches of Peter Saville for Factory Records and the imagined worlds of Roger Dean for Yes created a total visual language and stylistic expression for their bands in an involvement that often went much deeper than mere packaging and proved hugely influential.
A less well known area is Morrissey's own creative inspiration and direction over the teasingly suggestive imagery that so distinguished The Smiths' record sleeves and ... not so well known ... rock music posters. One of the most brilliantly conceived visual 'themes' in Pop history, appropriately for Morrissey "they suggest much but admit nothing".
For 1987's single 'Sheila Take A Bow' the cover star was Andy Warhol's transvestite Factory 'Superstar' Candy Darling, in a shot from Warhol's 1971 'Women In Revolt'. Born James Lawrence Slattery, Candy was memorably immortalised in Lou Reed's 'Walk On The Wild Side'. One polemical exception was conceived for 1985's 'Meat Is Murder'. Morrissey took the famous image of the determinedly non-Aquarian young Vietnam 'grunt' (from Emile de Antonio's 1969 anti-war film 'In the Year of the Pig') whose helmet bore the words "Make War Not Love" and replaced them with a heartful message of his own.
The 1960s saw the set conventions of record packaging beginning to break down, in sync with the corresponding expansion of musical boundaries. Photographer Robert Freeman's portfolio of portraits of Jazz giants John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Coleman Hawkins and others was brought to Brian Epstein's attention and he went on to shoot five of The Beatles quirky and stylish album covers:
Other highlights of the show include Jamie Reid's iconic Sex Pistols Jubilee assassination 'God Save The Queen', and Peter Saville's rare and highly sought after 'Unknown Pleasures' for Joy Division, along with the involvement of America's underground artists in rock music poster design.
As well as these examples, the show features many more rock music posters , including rare original posters, flyers and promos from a wide range of bands, along with original artifacts from the Hacienda and custom-framed examples of classic album covers.
