A three-stage journey to analyze, through visual works and sound documents, the profound relationship between contemporary art and British rock in the 1960s and 1970s. Entitled Echoes. Origins and References of British Art Rock, the exhibition cycle that kicked off last April 17 at the Luigi Rovatidi FoundationArt Pavilion in Milan. Curated by Francesco Spampinato, the project is developed in three autonomous but interconnected exhibitions dedicated respectively to The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Yes and Genesis, and finally to the career of Peter Gabriel.
The entire program analyzes the phenomenon of art rock in the United Kingdom, documenting the contaminations between visual art and music and illustrating how this dialogue has profoundly affected the collective imagination and contemporary visual culture. Art rock is investigated as a central node between avant-garde art and the culture industry, exploring the fusion of conceptual approach and pop communication. This is framed by a rich selection of works from both the Luigi Rovati Foundation collection and public and private collections, including paintings, illustrations, photographs, installations, videos and memorabilia.
Concert by The Beatles on the terrace of the Hotel Duomo for the press conference (1965; Photographic print; Milan, Fondazione Luigi Rovati) Photo credit: Farabola Archives Rome.
“In imagining and realizing this journey,” says Marco Fullone, “I looked for the most significant titles that were also ’enjoyable’ for our audience, i.e., avoiding prog rock songs or suites that are too hostile for those who perhaps are not yet familiar with this important musical genre. Following this poetics we could not miss ’The Carpet Crawlers’ by Genesis or ’A Day ln The Life’ by The Beatles, passing through ’Heroes’ by David Bowie in the magnificent reinterpretation by Peter Gabriel and Pink Floyd with ’Echoes’. These titles, along with others both celebrated and more sought-after intend to celebrate to the fullest an unrepeatable moment within the history of world music.”
“It is wonderful to revisit the images that at that time were only a complement to the music,” comments LucioRovati, Honorary President of the Foundation, “and to relate them to some traits of contemporary thought and arts: a beautiful journey into one of the most fertile periods of rock music and the musicians who often still characterize a cultured part of the musical landscape.”
“The origins of the contaminations between visual art and pop music will be sought here, of that border territory that takes shape between the bastions of high culture and the more enlightened regions of low culture, and that today seems to have extended to all areas of art, communication and commerce,” adds Francesco Spampinato.
The cycle opens with the exhibition The Beatles. The Myth Beyond Celebrity, on view through June 8. The exhibition reconstructs the impact The Beatles had on society, the recording industry and visual imagery. The focus is on the making of the famous 1967 cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a symbolic work of British Pop Art conceived by Peter Blake and Jann Haworth. On display is the entire photographic portfolio created by Michael Cooper to document the original diorama, as well as a work from Haworth’s Old Lady series (1962-63), a three-dimensional representation later captured on the album cover. The exhibit also delves into the group’s psychedelic component through portraits signed by Richard Avedon and the dark suggestions evoked by Raymond Pettibon’s work, which takes Beatlesian iconography to allude to Charles Manson’s distorted readings. Closing the itinerary are two videos that confront the figure of John Lennon from an intimate, off-center perspective: Smile (1968) by Yoko Ono and I’m Not The Girl Who Misses Much (1986) by Pipilotti Rist, the latter read from a feminist perspective. The works testify to the group’s evolution from a mass phenomenon to an object of critical reinterpretation, beyond popularity and within the language of art.
From June 14 to July 27, the second exhibition entitled Pink Floyd, Yes, Genesis. New Perceptions of Reality traces the aesthetics of progressive rock and psychedelia through a set of works in which the visual language often becomes hallucinated, symbolic, and alienating. The entrance to the path is marked by a painting by Alberto Savinio, an explicit reference to the influence of Surrealism on the imagery of these groups. This is followed by paintings by Roger Dean, author of Yes’s most famous covers, dreamlike photographs by Hipgnosis studio and Storm Thorgerson for Pink Floyd, which include the famous shots related to the albums The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and Animals, with the inflatable pig designed by Jeffrey Shaw. Genesis is also featured with original paintings created by Paul Whitehead for the albums Trespass, Nursery Cryme and Foxtrot, including the image of the fox in a red suit that became the group’s visual emblem. Also on display are Colin Elgie’s watercolors for A Trick of the Tail and Wind and Wuthering. In dialogue with this figurative universe, an installation by Swedish artist Nathalie Djurberg is on display that stages a surreal world composed of multicolored pills, a contemporary interpretation of a lysergic and fairy-tale sensibility.
Closing the cycle, from August 27 to October 5, is the exhibition Peter Gabriel. Fragmentation of Identity, dedicated to the figure of Gabriel first in Genesis and then in his solo career. The exhibit documents the complexity of his public image and the ongoing transformation of his visual identity. On display are artist-signed copies of the artwork produced by Hipgnosis for the albums Car, Scratch and Melt, as well as photographs and video clips documenting his best-known disguises: from the fox-woman of Foxtrot to the makeup adopted for Shock the Monkey, immortalized in a photograph by Guido Harari taken during the 1983 Sanremo Festival. An entire section is devoted to the interactive projects made by Gabriel in the 1990s in CD-ROM format, an expression of pioneering multimedia research. The theme of the multiplicity of the self is also investigated through references to the history of art: the exhibition itinerary opens with Man Ray’s photographic documentation of Rrose Sélavy (1921), Marcel Duchamp’s alter ego, and continues with works by Keith Haring and Kiki Smith that reflect on the transformations of identity in the postmodern era. Gabriel is thus placed in a network of references that contextualizes his figure as a multifaceted and visually conscious author. Accompanying the project is a monographic publication edited by Francesco Spampinato himself and published by the Luigi Rovati Foundation, which delves into the contents of the three exhibitions. Radio Monte Carlo is an official media partner of the initiative. For the occasion, music designer Marco Fullone has created a playlist available both on Spotify and at the exhibition via QR code, composed by selecting songs consistent with the imagery evoked in the works on display. The musical selection includes both pieces known to the general public and more sought-after tracks, to offer an accessible experience even to those unfamiliar with the genre. Selected titles include Genesis’ The Carpet Crawlers, The Beatles’ A Day in the Life, David Bowie’s Heroes reinterpreted by Peter Gabriel, and Pink Floyd’s Echoes.