It’s the 5th time that Manchester’s Art Gallery has collaborated with the Manchester International Festival in True Faith at the Gallery until the 3rd of September, Joy Division and New Order are shown to be not just a nostalgic look back on the city but an exhibition that shows how the ideas that came out of Manchester nearly forty years ago remain current and are constantly being reinterpreted.
The world of Peter Saville, Tony Wilson, Martin Hannett and many others is brought back to life in a story that began in 1976 with Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, Ian Curtis and Stephen Morris, through the tragic death of Curtis and would continue for the next thirty years as New Order, one of Britain’s most influential bands.
The first section showcases art inspired by the concept, dominated at one end by Glenn Brown’s Dark Angel, a sci fi future painted in brilliant yellows, and greens in homage to Curtis and and Julian Schnabel’s Ornamental Despair in black and white on canvas.
Here is Henri Theodore Fantin Latour’s Basket of Roses, courtesy of the National Gallery, which inspired the cover of New Orders Power Corruption and Lies, along with the postcard of the same piece bought by Peter Saville in the gallery gift shop
In the form of the record cover art could be part of the everyday -Peter Saville once wrote.
Set amongst the displays is Martin Boyce’s fluorescent trees, recreating his 2002 Glasgow inspiration, Our Love is like the flowers, the rain, the sea and the hours, giving the gallery the effect of being a dimly lit Park at night and burdening it with a ga sense of isolation, something that pervades thru Curtis’ lyrics of post industrial late 1970’s Manchester.
The music is not forgotten, a grainy black and white film of thirt three minutes duration, filmed at the Apollo theatre 27th Oct 1979 as they toured with the Buzzcocks, Sumner and Curtis lit up in a blinding white light.
As you enter the second gallery here are posters, archive material and video footage of the last 40 years of that journey.
A poster for 1979 Leigh Open Air pop festival, “no 26 from Manchester Victoria -use your wits or use the bus”
The Love will tear us apart lyrics handwritten by Ian Curtis on a scrap of paper, the proof poster for 1987’s Substance album, a Blue Monday flip book and a poster for a gig at the Bataclan Paris from 2011.
True Faith runs at Manchester Art Gallery Mosley Street from 30th June until 3rd September
