The Pink Floyd Exhibition: their Mortal Remains

The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains posted: 24/05/2017

Presented by the V&A and Michael Cohl's Iconic Entertainment

On Saturday 13 May, following years in the making, The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains will opened at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (V&A). This major spring exhibition marks the 50th anniversary of the band's first album, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn', and debut single, Arnold Layne. The exhibition is promoted by Michael Cohl and Iconic Entertainment Studios.

The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains, originally conceived by Storm Thorgerson and developed by Aubrey Po' Powell, who worked closely with Nick Mason (Consultant for Pink Floyd), is an audio-visual journey through 50 years of one of the world's most iconic rock groups, and a rare and exclusive glimpse into the world of Pink Floyd. It features many previously unseen objects collected over the band's eclectic history. It begins with an oversized recreation of the Bedford van which took them from gig to gig in the mid 60's.

David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Roger Waters and the late Richard Wright's voices help tell their story

The scale and ambition of Pink Floyd's imagery and live performances are encapsulated by several interactive, floor-to-ceiling installations by Stufish. From a massive representation of The Wall' stage set used during Pink Floyd's original 1980-1 tour with the giant inflatable schoolteacher looming over The Wall' into the vaulted ceiling; visual trickery is adopted to create a parallax of Battersea Power Station complete with towering chimneys which is the London landmark pictured on the cover of Pink Floyd's Animals' album, and a pitch-black space containing a holographic image bringing to life The Dark Side Of The Moon's famous prism.

The exhibition draws together many unique artefacts illustrating Pink Floyd's relationship with music, art, design, technology and performance from every stage of their career and personal lives. Among the earliest exhibits is the punishment book and cane from the Cambridge And County High School For Boys, where Pink Floyd's original guitarist and vocalist Syd Barrett and bass guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Roger Waters were pupils in the late 1950s.

Waters studied architecture at London's Regent Street Polytechnic in the early 60s, alongside fellow co-founders, drummer Nick Mason and keyboard player/vocalist Richard Wright. Included here are Waters' and Mason's technical drawings and sketches, showing how the formal training they received later influenced the group's creative ideas.

Exhibition includes larger than life installations, including Battersea Power Station, The Wall and original inflatables into the rafters of the V&A gallery

Pink Floyd's earliest performing days are represented with Syd Barrett's letter which includes a sketch of their Bedford van, and Nick Mason's annotated gig diary detailing the future stadium-filling band's humble beginnings, playing London's underground music club UFO and touring Britain's circuit of Top Rank ballrooms and college halls.

The Pink Floyd Exhibition offers a rare glimpse of the band's working methods, and plots their transition from a psychedelic pop group in the 1960s to the multi-platinum-selling albums band in the 70s, 80s and beyond. These include a letter, dated August 1967, from the BBC to Pink Floyd's booking agent requesting an explanation for Syd Barrett walking out of a recent recording session, and Roger Waters' handwritten lyrics for the songs Wish You Were Here and Have A Cigar.

The exhibition also offers an in-depth look at the band's instruments and technology. Several of David Gilmour's guitars, including his famous Black Strat, are exhibited, alongside Richard Wright's early- 70s era Mini Moog synthesiser and a treasure trove of effects pedals, hand-painted drum heads, echo chambers and more. Filmed interviews with the band members explain how this equipment was used to create Pink Floyd's ground-breaking and experimental sound on albums such as The Dark Side Of The Moon', Wish You Were Here' and The Wall'. Meanwhile, the exhibition's three purpose-built mixing desks allow visitors to mix' their own customised version of the classic Floyd song Money.

As well as its recreations of The Wall' and Battersea Power Station, Their Mortal Remains celebrates all aspects of Pink Floyd's iconic imagery, as seen on album covers and on stage. Original drawings and blueprints showcase the development of these images, and highlight the group's close working relationship with a team of world-class designers, lighting engineers, architects and illustrators, including the Hipgnosis design partnership of Aubrey Po' Powell and the late Storm Thorgerson.

These exhibits include the over 6-metre-high metallic heads' from the cover of 1994's The Division Bell', the inflatable TV and refrigerator as used on Pink Floyd's 1977 In The Flesh' tour; the lightbulb suit' pictured on the sleeve of 1988's Delicate Sound Of Thunder' live album, and a life-sized model of the British soldier shown in the artwork for 1983's The Final Cut' album.

The flow of the exhibition, in chronological order, is enhanced by music throughout and by the voices of past and present members of Pink Floyd, including David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Roger Waters and the late Richard Wright explaining their experiences and musical experimentation via sound specialist Sennheiser's intuitive GuidePORT system. This culminates in the Performance Zone, where visitors enter an immersive audio visual space which includes the recreation of the very last performance of all 4 me

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