Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
University of Central Lancashire
Sergeant Pepper's Revisited 2012
Alker was invited to make a new work, Sgt. Pepper’s Revisited 2012, for the exhibition Cut-ups, Cut-ins, Cut-outs: The Art of William S. Burroughs at the Kunsthalle in Vienna in 2012, as a result of his investigation into the relationship between contemporary art and indie-rock music (such as The Fall, The Smiths and Joy Division/New Order). This project explores the extent to which aspects of design, in this case album covers, can be said to re-contextualise and historicize ‘live’ performance elements.
The exhibition featured a sculptural collage by Alker, Sgt. Pepper’s Revisited 2012. The work examines the legacy of The Beatles through a reworking of the iconic cover of the album ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ (The cover of which featured an image of Burroughs). In Alker’s artwork the original photographic images of celebrities/historical figures were updated, reconfigured and replaced by more contemporary photographs of the original cast.
Sgt. Pepper’s Revisited 2012 was shown in the broader context of Burrough’s innovative use of experimental audio and photo collage, in which ‘text and image fragments are intuitively pieced together to form open associative narrative structures, in order to expand the boundaries of language and describe human consciousness.’
Previous works in this series have included ‘The Fall Album League’, ‘The Smiths Record Collection’ and ‘The Joy Division/New Order Record Collection’. The exhibition curators were Colin Fallows (Professor of Sound and Visual Arts), Synne Genzmer (Curator at Kunsthalle Wien).
Previous works in this series have included ‘The Fall Album League’, ‘The Smiths Record Collection’ and ‘The Joy Division/New Order Record Collection’. The exhibition curators were Colin Fallows (Professor of Sound and Visual Arts at Liverpool John Moores University), Synne Genzmer (Curator at Kunsthalle Wien).
The exhibition Cut-ups, Cut-ins, Cut-outs: The Art of William S. Burroughs subsequently toured from Vienna to the International Centre of Graphic Arts (MGLC) in Ljubljana February-April 2013.
