Got the Look. Graphic art and pop music

From Miles Davis to the Beatles and Doors, from the Sex Pistols and Nirvana to Westbam: “Got the Look” is the first exhibition in Europe to provide a comprehensive compendium of graphic and visual art in pop music and pop culture in the last 50 years. The roughly 1,000 objects were designed by eminent artists such as Andy Warhol, Peter Blake, Victor Moscoso, Rick Griffin, Martin Sharp, Frank Kozik, Mark Arminski and Raymond Pettibon. It started with posters, flyers, magazines and record covers and soon developed into a complex system of media messages. (Marshall McLuhan: “The Medium is the Message”). New trends in pop music developed characteristic visual forms of expression: the cover art of Blues, Rock ‘n’Roll and Soul which was heavily influenced by photography and film, the momentum of Psychedelic Art, classic Pop Art of the 60s and 70s, photocopied collages of handbills which were typical of Punk and Hardcore in the 1980s, computer generated flyers of Techno music for the Rave parties of the 1990s, the renaissance of the Pop poster and present-day designs for posters of the contemporary music scene. All of them are communication media which have contributed to the development of a specific identity of different trends in pop culture. Graphic art has created icons and the visual counterpart of a particular sound. The exhibition, curated by Uwe Husslein, will be shown before and during the c/o Pop Festival accompanied by a comprehensive supporting programme which will include live music, DJ shows, light shows and films.