HW: Barney exhibit

[Andy Gilham]

Finally got to see it this afternoon.

If you're at all interested in the history of Hawkwind, you'll kick yourself
if you miss it - it's only on until Thursday though so get your skates on!
Lots of great stuff - the Space Ritual stage design notes, lots of unused
artwork, and (my favourite) the film loop that was planned to be used on the
Hawklords tour: a lo-fi b&w assembly of strange and gritty imagery, which
reminded me of the film loops used nowadays by Godspeed You Black Emperor!,
except this was a quarter of a century ago...

There's also lots of prime cuts from FRIENDS magazine, including the famous
Hawkwind kite, and they've even cut out and asembled the kite (from a colour
photocopy, natch!).  And a kind of tarot layout, from IT in 1971, with the
lyrics to "Born to Go" and "Infinity" scattered among the cards...

What comes through clearly is how central Barney was to Hawkwind's imagery
in the seventies - not simply an illustrator, but an originator of ideas.

It's supposed to be at the Nik gig at Blackpool on Sunday, but looking at
the scale of the exhibit (it's all mounted on about forty heavy boards each
about one metre by two, and is more properly an installation), I don't think
they'll physically be able to move it all in time, so it probably won't be
the full exhibit; and the pieces will probably be dispersed to their various
owners after that.

I was graciously allowed to take a few photos - though not of the film,
sadly, and nothing too detailed - and they might might their way onto a
website at some point.

(By the way, some of the Space Ritual design stuff did make in into the
packaging for the 1999 PARTY album, so if you've got that, then you have one
of the bigger pieces of the jigsaw.)

-- Andy

www.andygilham.com