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PAINTWORK#2 Paintwork#2 is a unique collection of artists who are so divers that they normally would never exhibit together. Their only link in this exhibition is The Fall-gruppe and the more the visitor gets into this exhibition it transcends into a portrait of more than one generation; a portrait of time, music and art from the seventies till 2009. No retrospective, work in progress. It is an experiment: can this exhibition reflect and express the power of this rock-group? We think it can. We are impressed of the quality of the artists who came across The Fall in the last decades. And impressed of their dedication to work for this exhibition. They will almost all come to the opening. One of the first visual artists working for The Fall was Mark E. Smith´s sister Suzanne Smith who did early covers („Grotesque“ (1980, „There´s a Ghost in the House“ „Hit the North“ 1987) and Claus Castenskiold from Los Angeles who did in the 80´s covers like „Perverted by Language“ (1983). He knew Brix Smith from College and met The Fall in the states. His expressive wild surrealism stamped The Fall´s look in the 80´s. Anthony Frost from the artist dynasty in Penzance became a good friend of Mark E. Smith. The abstract painter is a bone-hard fan of The Fall and Captain Beefheart. Numerous of his paintings have Fall-titles or quotes. He did the cover of „Extricate“ (1990) and the last record „Imperial Wax Solvent“ (2008). „On the Extricate-cover my painting is upside down, that´s Mark´s way to make it a Fall-cover“ Frost laughs. Almost the antidot of the expressive painters of the first 30 years is George Shaw. Mark E. Smith is a fan of his romantic and realistic paintings of north-english suburbs where he was raised himself. He used one painting on the inner-sleeve of the record „Reformation“ (2007): In his 50th year he gave a glance into his soul – introverted, quiet and slightly melancholic. The front-cover of „Reformation“ almost looks like a sacral church window. It was made by mosaik-artist Mark Kennedy who is an old mate of Mark E. Smith from Manchester. Knud Odde from Kopenhagen wasn´t influenced by The Fall at all when he released his first record with The Sods on the Stepforward records label only weeks before The Fall made their debut on the same label 1978. With Sort Sol he became a Grammy-prize honoured rock-legend in denmark – fulltime painter since 2001 he did some MES-portraits and organized readings with Mark. Rik van Iersel organized an art-festival with Mark E. Smith in Eindhoven, called a whole exhibition with huge canvasses „The 27 points“ named after the double LP of The Fall and gave numerous of his paintings titles compiled of Fall-quotes. A dedicated and creative fan and artist who tried for the last decades to combine visual art and music. When painter Paul Housley opened his exhibition in Manchester „I Mancunian“ (2001) he showed a portrait of Mark E. Smith. The portrayed singer came himself and was reported to have been pleased by the work of the fellow Mancunian. The modern semi-realistic painter and friend of George Shaw recently had a solo-exhibition in London. If you want to write like Mark E. Smith, for whatever reason, you come across the work of Paul Wilson. It didn´t take the graphic designer long to develop the Mark E. Smith typewriting font, but a lot of Fall-fans have downloaded the font from Fall-online and write their correspondence in the handwriting of Mark E. Smith – who is not amused. To tell „The Story of The Fall“ Jeffrey Lewis combined his talents and dylanesquely shows comics while singing about a „strange and driven man“. The anti-folk star from New York knows the life on the live-tour and always knew The Fall who were setting the pace. He was asked to be the bassist of The Fall but refused to jump on the bandwagon: But Jowe Head an independend upstart with the Swell Maps in the late 70´s still likes The Fall and plays covers on stage. His painting „Food Chain“ was used on the cover of the tribute sampler „Perverted by Mark E.“ Savage Pencil didn´t like The Fall for a long time. Because he never got his money for the cover „Lie dream of a casino soul“. With thousands of publications Savage Pencil is now one of most well known cartoonists in the UK. Michael Pollard is a photographer from Manchester. He knows and worked with The Fall since the early days, his work was used on the album „This Nation´s Saving Grace“. Only a brief contact with The Fall had New York based photographer, filmmaker and Fall-fan Robert Palumbo. When he heard that The Fall were in town, he called the record-company and asked if he could take some pictures. Mark checked his website and made jokes about Palumbo´s photos of african refugees: „That´s me“ he cuckled when he saw the photo of an albino boy. Record company Narnack took six pictures and named them after the members of The Fall on the american edition of „Fall Heads Roll“. MES was not amused. For Tommy Crooks „The Fall are the best British band ever, including The Beatles“ The artist from Dundee did the cover of „Levitate“ and „Masquerade“ and lasted for about a year as a guitarist before that setup imploded on stage in New York´s Brownies 1998. Mark went to jail that night and is still not amused. David Alker and Peter Liddell are from Manchester and work in collaboration on projects related to art, music and history. Their 'record collections' are anthological paintings which chronicle the history of bands through single and album releases. This is their third Fall Record Collection. Whoever went to the concerts in the last years came across Safy Sniper. The Berlin-based video artist worked as the support act and did live video-scratching before The Fall came on stage. “ Less a group, more an experiment“ ist the motto of Globo from Norwich. The three-piece art-band recently recorded a cover of the record „This Nation´s Saving Grace“ from 1985. The DVD of the making of and a live perfomance in Norwich will be shown and they will perform „This Nation´s Saving Grace“ live 15th of may. Elaine Will once wanted to illustrate every Fall-song. She did a lot of illustrations for the fanzine „Pseud mag“ and her work was used in the second book with Fall-lyrics: vII edited by David Luff (R.I.P). Cartoonist Harley Richardson once applied to play in The Fall: „It was a mistake“ the Londoner says, „they never take fans.“ Concept artist, curator, painter: Dave Muller from Los Angeles is well known in the international art-world for his work with pop-culture references. As a part of a bigger installation he painted the ridge of the record „Perverted by Language“ |
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