Pink Floyd Exhibition: ‘Their Mortal Remains’ Coming to U.S.

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The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains

The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains, the critically acclaimed major retrospective of the group, their music, and their impact on art and culture, will make its first visit to the U.S., beginning this summer. The installation, at Los Angeles’ Vogue Multicultural Museum on Hollywood Boulevard, represents the fifth country – and first outside of Europe – to host the traveling exhibit. Its 2017 debut at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum attracted over 400,000 people.

The audio-visual exhibition, opening August 3, 2021, offers an “immersive experiential journey through Pink Floyd’s world, from high-tech audio-visual events, objects, and surreal landscapes.” Tickets are on sale now here. The run is scheduled to continue through Nov. 28. Watch a preview below.

Pink Floyd has a rich history with the city, having rehearsed and performed there on many occasions. Their 1979 album, The Wall, was completed and mixed there.

The Pink Floyd Exhibition is a collaboration between the members of Pink Floyd and curator, Aubrey Powell, as well as entertainment architects, Stufish, the band’s long-standing stage designers. It features over 350 artifacts collected over the band’s extraordinary career.

Each chapter of the Pink Floyd story is represented, with objects and artifacts displayed, many unseen before the exhibition. There are handwritten lyrics, musical instruments, letters, original artwork, and many of the stage props.

From the May 5 announcement: Visitors will find themselves transported to the band’s beginnings in 1967 on the underground scene in 1960s London including pictorial examples of the atmospheric oil and light projections as well as the equipment used by Pink Floyd’s 1960s-era lighting designer, Peter Wynne Willson. The chronological trip connects music, art and design, sound technology and live performance via The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, The Wall, and The Division Bell.

Some specific highlights: an original painting by Syd Barrett, who studied art in London and Cambridge before becoming a full-time musician; the Azimuth Co-ordinator, the custom-built device used by Richard Wright to pan the group’s live sound, via a joystick, around any given venue; Nick Mason’s Hokusai Wave drum kit from 1975; a selection of David Gilmour’s equipment and artifacts; and Roger Waters’ Ovation bass guitar from ‘74 – ‘78.

The world-famous artwork for 1973’s The Dark Side of the Moon was created by Hipgnosis, the design partnership founded by exhibition co-curator Aubrey Powell and the late Storm Thorgerson. Hipgnosis’ work is on display throughout the exhibition, alongside artwork and stage designs created for the band by others, including cartoonist and illustrator Gerald Scarfe and the late Mark Fisher.

Watch the official preview of the Exhibition

In 1979, Waters conceived The Wall which explored childhood alienation, the Second World War, the loss of his father, through to the rites of passage of a rock star. The album’s striking artwork and its grotesque cast of characters, including a huge inflatable cane-wielding schoolteacher created by Scarfe.

The flow of the exhibition, in chronological order, is enhanced throughout by music and the voices of Barrett, Waters, Wright, Mason and Gilmour, talking about their experiences and musical experimentation via an intuitive audio guide system. This culminates in the Performance Zone, where visitors enter an immersive audio-visual space, which includes Pink Floyd classic tracks as well as the recreation of the very last performance of Gilmour, Waters, Wright, and Mason, performing “Comfortably Numb” at Live 8 in 2005.