Sitting at the cross section of photography, art, design, celebrity and music, magazines have redefined access to culture, disrupting notions of high versus low, private and mass, art and documentary. In this talk we will look at the ways in which the mass medium disseminates and celebrates the creativity and socio-political context of music, as well as how it transformed sound into a visual medium. Featuring designer Neville Brody and photographer Brian Griffin, and moderated by Diane Smyth.
Biographies
Neville Brody, Professor in the RCA’s School of Communication, runs his design agency, Brody Associates, from his studio in London, working worldwide across multiple platforms including magazines, digital and branding with clients such as Channel 4, the BBC, Christian Dior, Supreme, Coca-Cola and Samsung. He is a Royal Designer for Industry, and received a Special Commendation in the Prince Philip Designer’s Prize.
Previously president of D&AD, Brody has always led his practice through experimentation and exploration, with influential projects such as FUSE and the ADF, and has continually placed a key focus on education and how it could develop to better support creative development and opportunity.
Born in Birmingham on the 13th April 1948, Brian Griffin received “Key of the City of Arles, France” in 1987 and published the book Work in 1988 with a one-man show at the National Portrait Gallery. In 1989 the Guardian newspaper proclaimed him “The Photographer Of The Decade”. In 2003 worked on Birmingham’s bid to become the European Capital City Of Culture followed by a retrospective at the Art Museum Reykjavik Iceland in 2005 and produced a book and exhibition for the Royal opening of the modernised St. Pancras Station and High Speed 1 in 2007. In 2009 became the patron of the Format Festival of Photography and has remained the patron of this bi-annual festival.
For the London Olympics in 2009 he launched the photography project “Road To 2012” at the National Portrait. In 2010 had a major retrospective of his portraiture “Face to Face” in Birmingham UK and was then commissioned by the City of Marseille and exhibited at “Marseille Provence 2013 European Capital of Culture”. Other awards include Best Photography book in the World at the Barcelona Primavera Fotografica (1991), the “Centenary Medal” from the Royal Photographic Society (2013) and an Honorary Doctorate by Birmingham City University for his lifetime contribution to photography and the City of Birmingham (2014). In 2019 he was made a Visiting Professor at the University Of The Highlands And Islands, Scotland.
Diane Smyth is a freelance writer who has worked with publications such as The Guardian, The Observer, The FT Weekend Magazine, Creative Review, Elephant Magazine, Aperture and FOAM, as well as with artists such as Vincen Beeckman and Mass Collective and galleries such as FOMU and NOUA. Prior to going freelance, Diane wrote and edited at BJP for 15 years, and she has also curated exhibitions for institutions such as The Photographers Gallery and Lianzhou Foto Festival.
Ticketing
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