Phenomenally successful interactive experience crosses the Atlantic for the first time
The United States has been confirmed as the fifth country to host The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains, the critically acclaimed major retrospective of Pink Floyd, their music, and the impact the band had on art and culture. Following its hugely successful debut at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum in 2017, which saw over 400,000 people attend, the Exhibition will now take residency in Los Angeles.
Crossing the Atlantic for the first time the Exhibition will open on August 3 at the Vogue Multicultural Museum on Hollywood Boulevard. This historical landmark is the perfect venue for the immersive experiential journey through Pink Floyd’s world, from high-tech audio-visual events, objects, and surreal landscapes that evolve throughout the Exhibition. Tickets for the Exhibition are on sale now via www.vmmla.com and www.pinkfloydexhibition.com. The Pink Floyd Exhibition is promoted by Michael Cohl of S2BN Entertainment, in association with L.A. event promoter, Diego Gonzalez.
“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. “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.”
As the first location outside of Europe, Los Angeles is the ideal destination to host the exhibition as the band has a rich history with the city, having rehearsed and performed there on many occasions. Pink Floyd’s The Wall was completed and mixed in the famous city and in 1980 the group performed the first of 31 live shows at Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena.
The Pink Floyd Exhibition is a collaboration between the members of Pink Floyd and curator, Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell. Developed closely with Nick Mason (Exhibition Consultant for Pink Floyd), the exhibition features over 350 artifacts collected over the band’s extraordinary career. It is an audio-visual journey through more than five decades of one of the most iconic groups, and a rare glimpse into the world of Pink Floyd. The exhibition is a collaboration with designers Stufish, entertainment architects, and the band’s long-standing stage designers.
Each chapter of the Pink Floyd story is represented, with objects and artifacts displayed, many unseen before the exhibition. There are 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 before being ‘dusted off’ for the exhibition.
From the entry point into The Pink Floyd Exhibition, the visitor is immersed in Pink Floyd’s world. They 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. You will be assailed by a chronological trip through 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.
Art and technology are celebrated, including an original painting by Syd Barrett, who studied art in London and Cambridge before becoming a full-time musician as well as a replica of the famed mirrored Fender guitar that Syd liked to play on stage and Syd’s sketch of how he envisaged the first Pink Floyd line up. Also featured 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.
Pink Floyd’s journey through the 1970s saw them embracing studio technology and using all the resources at their disposal at EMI’s Abbey Road Studio on albums such as Meddle, The Dark Side Of The Moon, and Wish You Were Here. Several instruments used in those years 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 and Zabriskie Point; musical projects undertaken around their studio albums, and excerpts from the acclaimed Pink Floyd 1972 film, ”Live At Pompeii.”
The now world-famous artwork for 1973’s The Dark Side Of The Moon was created by Hipgnosis, the design partnership founded by exhibition co-curator Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell and the late Storm Thorgerson. Hipgnosis’ work is on display throughout the exhibition, 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.
These artifacts plot both Pink Floyd’s development as a spectacular live band and the broader social, cultural, and political threads which ran parallel to their music. Among the many artwork pieces on display is 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 of the 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 striking artwork and its grotesque cast of characters, including a huge inflatable cane-wielding schoolteacher, were created by cartoonist and illustrator Gerald Scarfe. Also, 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 in the exhibition are the cane used by the headmaster at the Cambridge and County High School for Boys on his pupils, Roger Waters, Syd Barrett, and future 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.”
Later in 1987, Pink Floyd returned to Los Angeles to record their debut album without Roger called A Momentary Lapse of Reason. The scale and ambition of 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.
The flow of the exhibition, in chronological order, is enhanced throughout 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, talking about their experiences and musical experimentation via an intuitive audio guide system. This culminates 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 very last performance of David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Richard Wright, and Nick Mason, performing “Comfortably Numb” at Live 8 in 2005.
Tickets on sale now at www.vmmla.com
Exhibition runs August 3 to November 28 2021
Admission prices from $30 to $46 (plus applicable fees), audioguide included in the price
Venue: Vogue Multicultural Museum, 6675 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles
Venue website: www.vmmla.com
About The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains
The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains is presented by Michael Cohl of S2BN Entertainment. The exhibition was originally created for London’s V&A, led by Pink Floyd’s creative director Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell (of the design partnership Hipgnosis) and Paula Webb Stainton, who worked closely with the Pink Floyd members including Nick Mason (Exhibition Consultant For Pink Floyd), with additional curation provided by the V&A’s Victoria Broackes.
About S2BN Entertainment
Led by industry icon Michael Cohl, S2BN is a full-service live entertainment producer and promoter. They deliver the highest-quality live experiences to fans worldwide. Their work ranges from concerts and theater to family entertainment and museum-quality exhibitions. S2BN is an industry leader known for delivering spectacular live events. Their past and current projects have won Emmy Awards, a Grammy Award, a Peabody Award, a Billboard Creative Content Award, and an NAACP Image Award. Recent projects include Barbra Streisand’s global touring, Phil Collins’ North American tour, the North American tour of Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets, Bat Out of Hell: The Musical, Rock of Ages: The Musical, An Evening with Oprah, and more. For more information, visit www.s2bn.com.
About Hipgnosis
In 1967 Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell and Storm Thorgerson were approached by their friends in Pink Floyd to design the cover for the group’s second album, A Saucerful of Secrets. This led to a flurry of work from other bands including Free and Tyrannosaurus Rex. The name Hipgnosis was born out of a chance encounter with a door frame. Powell and Thorgerson had been looking for a name for their fledgling studio. At the time they shared a flat with Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett and by chance Syd had scrawled in ball-point pen the word HIPGNOSIS on the door. Over the next fifteen years Hipgnosis gained international prominence. Their famed 1973 cover design for Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon paved the way for other major rock bands to set foot in the surreal photo-design world of Storm and Po, resulting in many artworks for Led Zeppelin, Paul McCartney, Black Sabbath and more.
About Paula Webb Stainton
Paula Webb Stainton is a professional organiser of high-profile international Events and Exhibitions. Clients of her company, Roebuck Webb Ltd, include McLaren Formula One, Ralph Lauren, and of course, Pink Floyd. Dublin born, Paula’s 30-plus year career began as a client manager and producer in advertising agencies in Ireland, London and New York, before she began managing Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason’s action vehicle props company Ten Tenths, as well as organising tour events for Pink Floyd in the mid 1980s. The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains which Paula is co-curating with Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell, is Paula’s second exhibition for the band. Together with Storm Thorgerson, Paula co-curated the Pink Floyd ‘Interstellar’ Exhibition at the Citie de La Musique, Paris in 2003, which became the institution’s most successful exhibition of all time.
About Stufish
Stufish, founded by the late and legendary Mark Fisher, has an international award-winning portfolio including theatrical and musical productions, touring shows, concerts, as well as permanent/temporary entertainment architecture. Some examples of Stufish’s high profile tours include Elton John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, the Rolling Stones’ No Filter tour, Beyoncé and Jay Z’s, On The Run II tour, and U2 Experience + Innocence 2018, as well as tours for Madonna, Lady Gaga, Robbie Williams and more. Exhibition design includes Pink Floyd: Their Mortal Remains, the highly acclaimed and largest selling music exhibition of all time at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. Award-winning examples of their bespoke permanent building designs are the Han Show Theatre and Dai Show Theatre in China. UAE projects include the FIFA World Cup Opening & Closing ceremony Abu Dhabi 2009, UAE 4th Anniversary Show Abu Dhabi 2012, Qasr al Hosn-Story of a Fort Abu Dhabi 2013, and Qasr al Hosn master planning competition 2015. Stufish also designed the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics 2008, the Asian Games 2010, and the 5th AIMAG Opening Ceremony in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan 2017, as well as many sets for TV shows of which the MTV Video Music Awards (2017) and the National Television Awards (2018) in the UK are recent examples.
About Vogue Multicultural Museum
The Vogue Theatre is considered a historical landmark of Los Angeles. The building was built in 1935 and was eventually remodeled in 1959. It closed its doors in 1995. The event space has been used for film locations and live performances. Now, the Vogue Multicultural Museum has opened its doors to welcome all types of cultural and artistic expressions, becoming a unique place in the heart of Hollywood.
“Out of our interest for bringing new and exciting experiences to the people of Los Angeles, the Vogue Multicultural Museum is born in this historical place. The building has been upgraded with state-of-the-art installations, while at the same time respecting the original architecture.
The VMMLA is a space devoted to creating unique cultural events, and our mission is to become an important place in the city, popular for its innovative and never-before-seen exhibitions.”
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Source: Press Release
