By Karen Ostlund
Los Angeles is the 5th city to host The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains, the retrospective of Pink Floyd, their music, art and culture as a high-tech audio-visual event.
The organizers have planned to tour the exhibit 10 years from opening date May 13 2017, at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, followed by Rome, Dortmund, Madrid and today Los Angeles' Vogue Multicultural Museum, September 3rd until January 9th 2022.
https://youtu.be/LzqjMQtY6FA
The exhibition is enhanced by music and the voices of past and present members of Pink Floyd, including Syd Barrett, Roger Waters, Richard Wright, Nick Mason and David Gilmour, who are talking about their experiences and musical experimentation via an intuitive audio guide system in the Performance Zone, where visitors enter an immersive audio-visual space, which includes Pink Floyd classic tracks, as well as the recreation of the last performance of David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Richard Wright, and Nick Mason, performing “Comfortably Numb” at Live 8 in 2005.
The Pink Floyd Exhibit is promoted by Michael Cohl of S2BN Entertainment, in association with L.A. event promoter, Diego Gonzalez. The setup of "Their Mortal Remains" started with a ribbon-cutting, 10AM August 10 2021, at the entrance of Vogue Multicultural Museum at 6675 Hollywood Blvd in Hollywood, CA.
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| August 10th, 2021, Latino actor and activist Edward James Olmos kicked
off a ribbon cutting for the Vogue Multicultural Museum, to start the
set-up of The Pink Floyd exhibit, which traveled from Europe. Olmos was joined by Marcela Celorio, the Consul General of Mexico in Los Angeles, Ana Martinez, the Hollywood Walk of Fame producer, as well as producer Diego Gonzalez and designer Mitzy. |
“I feel very proud to have the opportunity to introduce a new era of cultural exhibitions for the city of Los Angeles, especially with the timeless and legendary Pink Floyd, a band so inspirational to myself and millions of fans all around the world for generations,” said Diego Gonzalez (left on photo).
“This exhibition will be a really exciting opportunity for
people to come together to experience music, culture, design and
innovation, all principles that Pink Floyd represent in their music. I
couldn’t imagine a better exhibition to inaugurate the Vogue
Multicultural Museum in Hollywood.”
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| Stage-art from the album "The Wall". |
Pink Floyd’s album "The Wall" was completed and mixed in LA, and in 1980 the group performed the first of 31 live shows at Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena.
The Pink Floyd Exhibit is a collaboration between the members of Pink Floyd and curator, Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell, designers Stufish, and developed closely with Nick Mason, consultant for Pink Floyd. The show features over 350 artifacts collected over the band’s five decades career.
Each chapter of the Pink Floyd story is represented, with objects, handwritten lyrics, musical instruments, letters, original artwork, and many of the stage props. Some of these items have long been held in storage facilities, film studios, and in the personal collections of band members.
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| Album and stage art "The Division Bell". |
The ticket holders will find themselves transported to the band’s beginnings in 1967 on the underground scene in 1960’s London including pictorial examples of the atmospheric oil and light projections as well as the equipment used by Pink Floyd’s 1960s-era lighting designer, Peter Wynne Willson.
It’s a trip of Pink Floyd’s history, connecting with music, art and design, sound technology and live performance via landmark albums such as "The Dark Side Of The Moon”, "Wish You Were Here”, “Animals”, "The Wall", and "The Division Bell".
An original painting by Syd Barrett, is featured before becoming a full-time musician, and an replica of his famed mirrored Fender guitar.
Also on display, is the "Azimuth Co-Ordinator", the custom-built device used by Richard Wright to pan the group’s live sound, via a joystick, around any given venue. The Azimuth played an integral part in Pink Floyd’s theatrical live performances at venues such as London’s Royal Festival Hall and Royal Albert Hall in the late 1960s as well as on the recording of the clock montage for ‘Time’ on "The Dark Side of the Moon".
Several 1970s instruments from EMI’s Abbey Road Studio (Meddle, The Dark Side Of The Moon, and Wish You Were Here) are displayed here, including Nick Mason’s ‘Hokusai Wave’ drum kit from 1975 and a selection of David Gilmour’s equipment and artifacts, and Roger Waters’ Ovation bass guitar from ‘74 – ‘78. Also included are Pink Floyd’s soundtracks for the art-house movies, More, La Vallée , Zabriskie Point, and Pink Floyd 1972 film, ‘Live At Pompeii’.
The world-famous artwork for 1973’s The Dark Side Of The Moon was created by Hipgnosis, the design partnership founded by co-curator Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell and the late Storm Thorgerson.
Hipgnosis’ work is on display throughout the exhibit, alongside artwork and stage designs created for the band by others, including Gerald Scarfe (whose very first drawing of the band is included in the comic book program on display from 1974) and the late Mark Fisher.
Among the many artwork pieces on display are alternative imagery of architect Giles Gilbert Scott’s Battersea Power Station, the building immortalized by Roger Waters’ interpretation on the cover of Pink Floyd’s 1977 album, Animals, with the flying pig, Algie, and the only remaining model sheep which was fired from mortars and parachuted over the audience during the
’77 In The Flesh tour in US.
In 1979, Roger Waters conceived "The Wall “ which explored childhood alienation, the Second World War, the loss of his father, through to the rites of passage of a rock star. The album’s artwork and cast of characters, including a huge inflatable cane-wielding schoolteacher, were created by cartoonist and illustrator Gerald Scarfe. Some of Roger’s original biro sketches and lyrics for The Wall accompanied by a mannequin cloaked in his black leather coat and megaphone from the 2010-2013 The Wall shows.
These characters were then re-imagined by Mark Fisher as huge inflatables in the subsequent ‘Wall’ stage show, some of which have been re-created by Stufish and will feature in the exhibition. Included are the cane used by the headmaster at the Cambridge and County High School for Boys on his pupils, Roger Waters, Syd Barrett, and collaborator Storm Thorgerson and a punishment book detailing the dates and reasons for the beatings - all inspiration for the schoolteacher character and the song “Another Brick In The Wall Pt 2.”
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| Lightbulbs suits worn by two mannequins mimicking the cover of the 1988 live album, "Delicate Sound Of Thunder”. |
In 1987, Pink Floyd returned to Los Angeles to record their debut album without Roger called "A Momentary Lapse of Reason". The Pink Floyd’s imagery and live shows continued from the late 1980s and mid-’90s with world tours for the
"A Momentary Lapse Of Reason “ and "The Division Bell " albums.
On display are specially reconstructed suits of lightbulbs worn by two mannequins mimicking the cover of the 1988 live album, "Delicate Sound Of Thunder” - which was photographed in Madrid in 1989. The giant metal and stone ‘talking heads’ was conceived by Storm Thorgerson for the sleeve of 1994’s "The Division Bell”.
Tickets (audio-guide included): www.vmmla.com
www.pinkfloydexhibition.com Venue: Vogue Multicultural Museum, 6675 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood,CA
