Thursday night saw the official launch for the opening of the unmissable exhibition, "Mind Over Matter: Images of Pink Floyd".
Celebrating the 40th anniversary of Storm Thorgerson's first commission for Pink Floyd - the cover for 1968's "A Saucerful Of Secrets" - and the unique relationship between the band and artist, the exhibition (details below) travels through time revisiting those significant moments in their musical history.
It runs for two and a half weeks, and has on display all the creative results of musical and artistic collaboration between the Floyd and Storm. As you'll see below, you owe it to yourself (and to Storm!) to pay the exhibition a visit if you are in London over the next couple of weeks.
Thursday's launch event proved very popular, with a large turnout on a very warm evening. This seemed to please Storm no end, who was on fine form. Various luminaries were in attendance through the evening, including members of the Floyd's, and Roger's, respective management teams.
The gallery itself is in a vibrant part of London which has clearly been undergoing a fair amount of much-needed redevelopment, and is sited literally next to the River Thames. With its plain white walls, the gallery proved to be an eminently suitable venue to display Storm's work.
Creating visually beautiful and interesting art, Storm's work has of course featured on a variety of single, album and CD covers for numerous different bands. However it is his work with Pink Floyd that is arguably the most renowned.
The exhibition includes over sixty photographs, comprising of Pink Floyd album covers, single bags, posters, programmes and so forth; all for sale, and all signed by Storm.
The exhibition coincides with the recent release of the fourth edition of the book "Mind Over Matter: Images of Pink Floyd", which includes 50 new, additional pages of previously unreleased material.
Of course, Storm is still actively working with the band, and the exhibition brings matters bang up-to-date with the inclusion of "Chip Off The Old Block", the intended cover of the proposed 2009 Pink Floyd calendar. We're hoping for more information on that shortly but in the meantime you have the chance to see the piece - Storm's latest creation for the band - exclusively at the.gallery@oxo.
Of course, one of the joys of visiting an exhibition like this is the ability to see, and study, the intricate detail found in many of the pieces. The constraints of the CD have resulted in album cover artwork being squashed to fit, so it is a real eye-opener to see the images in a much larger, clearer format, and printed in extremely high quality too.
For those who want more detail or information on the various artworks, the gallery has the very able services of a friendly and knowledgeable invigilator for the exhibition. If you have any questions while you are there, just ask her!
More details of the fabulous book that is the companion piece to the exhibition can be found here.
You can order the book - an essential item for all Floyd fans - at time of writing with a healthy discount, through the following links which help Brain Damage with our running costs: Amazon UK, Amazon US/International, Amazon Canada, Amazon Germany, or Amazon France.
The exhibition itself is now open, and being held at the.gallery@oxo, Oxo Tower Wharf, Bargehouse Street, South Bank, London, SE1 9PH until Sunday August 10th 2008. The gallery is open daily from 11am to 6pm and admission to the exhibition is free. For further information on the gallery, please visit www.coinstreet.org.
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