[pitchfork.com] Notable album covers catch the eye, dribble it around a little, and then snap it back into place, forever skewed. They can be funny, gross, shocking, stunning, or just plain wrong. They can define artists. With Take Cover, we aim to track down the most striking new album covers taking up web space and vinyl bins and get the story behind them.
For this very special edition of Take Cover, we spoke with Stanley Donwood, the man responsible for all of Radiohead's album covers from The Bends on, along with most of the band's artwork. From the bare, bleak OK Computer cover to the vibrant shots of color that spray over In Rainbows, Donwood has helped to capture all the alienation and intensity of one of the most celebrated bands of all time. Plus: Without him, there would be no Radiohead Bear.
Donwood is currently displaying his first U.S. gallery show at San Francisco's FIFTY24SF through October 27. The show is called Over Normal and features some of the same bright, oil-based colors and billboard-advertisement concepts behind his subversive Hail to the Thief sleeve. It finds Donwood turning words commonly found in spam e-mails and repurposing them as mutated and modern pieces of consumer art. Over Normal also features a vocoder-assisted, spam-based audio element called the Overnormalizer, created with John Matthias.
Click HERE to see some pieces from the show and read our interview with Donwood about his work with Radiohead and how his art has evolved over the years.
No comments:
Post a Comment