The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains continues its phenomenal global success
Spain becomes the fourth country to host this amazing interactive experience
Madrid, April 26, 2019 – Spain has been confirmed as the fourth 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 Madrid, Spain’s capital city. The exhibition will open on 10 May 2019 at the internationally recognised IFEMA – the Trade Fair Institution of Spain, the home of the very successful “Harry Potter: The Exhibition” and “Banksy: Genius or Vandal?”. IFEMA’s Espacio 5.1 is the perfect venue for the immersive experiential journey through Pink Floyd’s world, from high-tech audio visual events, objects, and surreal landscapes, to culture explosions that evolve throughout the exhibition. Tickets for the exhibition are on sale now via StubHub (www.stubhub.es) and www.pinkfloydexhibition.es. The Pink Floyd Exhibition is promoted globally by Michael Cohl of Concert Productions International, in association with DG Entertainment and Spanish event promoter Sold Out.
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 artefacts 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 artefacts displayed, many unseen before the exhibition. There are hand written 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. 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 guitars including the Fender Custom Telecaster used on Animals. 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.
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 programme on display from 1974) and the late Mark Fisher.
These artefacts 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’sBattersea Power Station, the building immortalised by Roger Waters’ interpretation on the cover of Pink Floyd’s 1977 album, Animals.
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 cane-wielding schoolteacher, were created by cartoonist and illustrator Gerald Scarfe.
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 is 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.
The scale and ambition of Pink Floyd’s imagery and live shows continued in the 1980s and ‘90s with world tours for the A Momentary Lapse Of Reason and The Division Bell albums. The exhibition salutes this scale and ambition with a specially reconstructed suit of lightbulbs worn by a model on the cover of the 1988 live album, Delicate Sound Of Thunder which was photographed near Madrid in 1989, and the giant ‘talking heads’ conceived by Storm Thorgerson for the sleeve of 1994’s 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 sound specialist Sennheiser’s 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 at Live 8. The listener will hear Comfortably Numb, specially mixed using Sennheiser’s ground-breaking AMBEO 3D audio technology.
NOTES TO EDITORS
- Tickets on sale now at StubHub (www.stubhub.es) and www.pinkfloydexhibition.es
- Admission €9.90 EUR - €19.90 EUR (plus applicable fees), audioguide included in the price
- Opening schedule: Tuesday – Sunday, 11:00am – 10:00pm (last entry: 8:30pm) until 15 September 2019
- Venue: IFEMA – Feria de Madrid, Espacio 5.1, Avda. Partenón, nº5, 28042 Madrid
- Exhibition website: www.pinkfloydexhibition.es
About The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal RemainsThe Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains is presented by Michael Cohl of Concert Productions International. 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 Concert Productions InternationalConcert Productions International, led by Michael Cohl, is a full-service live event producer and promoter. The company specializes in the development of high-calibre touring exhibitions, unique live music tours, family entertainment attractions, and live theatre. Concert Productions International and its affiliates are currently producing Bat Out of Hell: The Musical and Rock of Ages: The Musical (which just announced its return to New York with an off-Broadway run that begins this summer). Other recent Concert Productions International projects include An Evening with Oprah Winfrey, David Gilmour’s Rattle That Lock North American tour, Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets North American tour, Barbra Streisand’s North American tour, Phil Collins’ Not Dead Yet Live North American Tour, An Evening with Al Pacino, and Jurassic World: The Exhibition.
About HipgnosisIn 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 StaintonPaula 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 StufishStufish, 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 Sold OutSold Out organizes The Pink Floyd Exhibition in Madrid. Since its creation in 1995, Sold Out has directed its activity towards the production, promotion and organization of all kinds of live entertainment events, both for promoters and companies and for the general public, creating unique experiences since its inception. In the last 20 years, Sold Out has organized some of the most important entertainment projects that have taken place in Spain, from concerts to theatre, through exhibitions, festivals and corporate events. Sold Out regularly works abroad organizing tours and international shows. In 2017, Sold Out presented in Spain the exhibitions David Bowie Is, Björk Digital, the international debut Game of Thrones®: The Touring Exhibition or Harry Potter ™: The Exhibition, the latter becoming one of the most visited exhibitions in Spain with more of 460,000 visitors. In 2018, Sold Out has also premiered in SPACE 5.1, Jurassic World: The Exhibition and Banksy, Genius or Vandal? More information at www.soldout.es
About DG EntertainmentDG Entertainment is a pioneer company in the production of shows in South America. With more than 30 years of experience, it has been responsible for the development of the music industry in Latin America, making possible the arrival in the region of artists like The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Guns n 'Roses, AC / DC, Madonna, Eric Clapton , Metallica, The Ramones, Paul McCartney, Prince, U2, Björk, PJ Harvey, Nick Cave, The Police and Lou Reed. In Europe, DG Entertainment has also developed an important route in the production of musical and theatrical shows. Passion for music, professionalism and commitment to the public and culture are the values that make DG Entertainment a leading company of international recognition. www.dge.com.ar
About SPACE 5.1, the new venue for large exhibitions at IFEMAIn its commitment to continue bringing the best exhibitions of the international circuit to Spain, and in the absence of spaces with the necessary requirements to accommodate this type of event in Madrid, Sold Out has reached an agreement with IFEMA for the creation of SPACE 5.1, a new pavilion in the heart of the Feria de Madrid that will host the best international traveling exhibitions during the coming years. So, Sold Out is joining together with IFEMA for the creation of a new space in Madrid dedicated to entertainment, culture and the arts, where you can regularly enjoy large international exhibitions. To house these exhibitions, a permanent 5,000m tent has been built next to the main IFEMA building, but with an independent entrance. This new space has all the necessary services to accommodate this type of events: cloakroom, cafeteria, rest area, merchandising store or parking. There will be 2 exhibitions per year, blockbusters and international titles for all audiences and varied themes, which will offer new experiences to the visitor, paying special attention to the immersive and new audiovisual technologies.
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