The V&A have today announced that the first international retrospective of one of the world’s most iconic and influential bands will be hosted at the museum in Kensington, London in 2017. Presented by the V&A, Pink Floyd and Iconic Entertainment Studios, The Pink Floyd Exhibition – Their Mortal Remains will mark 50 years since the band’s first release and follows in the footsteps of the huge success of the museum’s Bowie Is exhibition in 2013.
It is wonderful to see this exhibition coming to fruition after a long journey under the supervision of longstanding Pink Floyd collaborator (and Hypergallery artist) Aubrey 'Po' Powell.
This major exhibition of the British band’s life and times was originally conceived for a venue in Milan and due to open in September in 2014 but it was cancelled when solicitors for Pink Floyd terminated the exhibition agreement in July 2014. By that time a huge amount of research and design had already been undertaken and so it is well worth celebrating the fact that the V&A - a most suitable flagship for this story - has managed to make it happen.
Aubrey Powell, along with Storm Thorgerson, founded Hipgnosis in 1968 when they conceived their first album cover for Pink Floyd’s A Saucerful of Secrets. He curates The Pink Floyd Exhibition – Their Mortal Remains alongside Paula Stainton for Pink Floyd and, for the V&A, a team lead by Senior Curator Victoria Broackes.
"The curators have worked in close consultation with Roger Waters, David Gilmour and Nick Mason on the content of the exhibition, which will feature over 350 artefacts spanning the band's five decades, alongside material from the V&A’s outstanding collections of art, design, architecture and performance.”
