Preview: Barney Bubbles: 'Optics and Semantics'

Rob Tufnell presents a retrospective of furniture, posters, records, videos, badges and ephemera designed or directed by Barney Bubbles (1942-1983). Best known for his graphic work for the music industry Bubbles was also engaged with three-dimensional design and moving image production. This exhibition is organised around his Formica and lacquer ‘AC/DC Desk’ (1982) based upon a British Standard three-pin plug and socket.
Bubbles (born Colin Fulcher) adopted his nom de plume in 1967, four years after completing his studies at Twickenham College of Technology, when he was invited to produce psychedelic light shows for music events at the Roundhouse, the Arts Lab and Middle Earth in London. In the same year he began working as a freelance graphic designer. In 1969 he established Teenburger Designs in Portobello Road, London and began working on publications including ‘Frendz’. He became well known for his elaborate die-cut, fold-out record sleeves several of which were produced for the psychedelic rock band Hawkwind. His involvement with ‘In Search Of Space’ (1971) was credited on the sleeve as ‘Optics/Semantics’ (from which this exhibition takes its title).

After business partners abandoned him to face a large tax bill in 1973, Bubbles largely avoided credits for his artwork, often working anonymously or using alternative pseudonyms. In 1977 he began working for Stiff records producing the first UK Punk rock record sleeve with the Damned’s ‘New Rose’ (1977). Numerous iconic record sleeves, magazine advertisements, posters, T shirts, badges and identities followed for bands and musicians including Billy Bragg, Elvis Costello, Depeche Mode, Ian Drury and the Blockheads, Nick Lowe and Generation X. Bubbles also devised marketing strategies and was responsible for the introduction of the industry standard 4 sheet or 60 x 40” fly-poster. He also created the abbreviated masthead of the New Musical Express – shortened to NME in 1979.

Bubbles’ appropriated and reinvented ideas and iconographies from Art Nouveau, Constructivism, Expressionism, De Stijl, Abstract Expressionism, Op Art and Pop Art. His understanding of print production enabled him to reject convention and standardised products. His record covers could come in 28 different versions (Ian Dury and the Blockheads ‘Do it Yourself’, 1979); feature deliberate mistakes (such as the Damned’s ‘Damned, Damned, Damned’, 1977 with its portrait of the wrong band) and incorporate subversive messages (such as DON'T JOIN on Elvis Costello’s ‘Armed Forces’, 1979). Ever alert to cultural shifts he embraced video, directing pop promos for The Specials, Squeeze, Elvis Costello and Fun Boy Three. And his furniture designs, realised with Marius Cain, find peers in the concurrent productions of Ettore Sottsass’ Memphis design group.

Bubbles' work has been the subject of several exhibitions including ‘Process: The Working Practices of Barney Bubbles’ Chelsea Space, London and ‘The Past, The Present & The Possible’ as part of the 23rd International Poster & Graphic Design Festival in Chaumont (both in 2012). These exhibitions were curated by Paul Gorman, author of ‘Reasons to be Cheerful: The Life & Work Of Barney Bubbles’ (2008). His work was included in major survey exhibitions including ‘Destroy: Punk Graphic Design in Britain’, Southbank Centre, London, 1998; ‘Communicate: British Independent Graphic Design since the Sixties’, the Barbican Centre, London, 2004 and 'Postmodernism: Style & Subversion 1970–1990’ and the British Design 1948–2012’ at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London in 2011 and 2012 respectively. Bubbles’ designs are the basis for a series of limited edition shirts and cloth patches currently being produced by Fred Perry.

This exhibition is curated with Paul Gorman.