Cathy's Art Diary

Excellent exhibition at the Royal Festival Hall to mark 50 years since the release of the Aladdin Sane album by David Bowie. I was expecting an over stylised show about the album but it concentrated on the iconic album cover of Bowie with a lightning bolt across his face taken by Brian Duffy. Most of the material came from Duffy’s archive and was used to set the scene and tell the story of the photo session. I loved a section on album covers explaining how Sgt Pepper was the first album to have such an ornate, artistic one. Prior to that covers had been quite bland pictures of the artists. There was a wonderful selection many of which I not only recognised but have. The show explained how one requirement of the shoot was to cost a lot of money! Bowie’s manager    calculated that if they ran up a big bill the record company would have to put money into marketing to recoup the costs. Duffy therefore choose an innovative printing process which could only be done in Switzerl...

Interesting exhibition at the Photographers’ Gallery looking as photography’s role in making and shaping musical artists. I must admit this show was a bit geeky even for me! I didn’t know a lot of the albums being talked about and there was quite an emphasis on early jazz however it was still interesting and you can always learn something. There were small sections on different topics from the work of Richard Avedon, whose portraits were used on over 120 covers and inspired others, though the collaboration between Grace Jones and Jean-Paul Goude to create her image via her covers and work by Andy Warhol used on covers. My favourite section focused on Ian MacMillan’s work for the Abbey Road cover shown with Linda McCartney’s informal images of the day including the one shown here. It was interesting to see an iconic image deconstructed. Closed 12 June 2022

Small pop-up exhibition at London Bridge station marking   National Album Day. Information boards highlight the influential, best-selling and iconic albums of Scotland, the North, the Midlands and London and the South. Each region shows the best sellers in that area then two guests from the music business suggesting the most influential and most iconic by artists from that area. Each featured album’s information includes artist, album title, date, a short write up and album cover. It was interesting to realise where artists come from plus to be reminded of old favourites. This was a nice diversion when travelling. Now closed.

Small display in the Icon Outlet Centre at the O2 to mark National Album Day. I must admit I saw this at the end of December and the day had been in October so I guess this was quite old! Even so it was an interesting display of iconic album covers over the last 70 years and looking at their history. It was nice that it began with a classical music album from 1949 and it would have been nice if had included a bit more from this genre. However it was great to see many records from my own collection including Rumours by Fleetwood Mac, of course, and Night Clubbing by Grace Jones but frightening to realise how few of the recent covers I recognised. A fun display to discover while shopping!