The combination of Black Francis, Kim Deal, Chris Bigg, Vaughan Oliver and 4AD changed my life. One morning I heard sounds from a whale-of-man that was standing front and center screaming into a microphone: singing songs about Surrealism, prostitution, sex, depression and the futility of it all. All of that timed under two minutes.
Circumferencing this homely group of musicians was the candy wrapper of a London design studio that would change the way I wanted to live my life. If in my fantasy world, I could walk around with exterior grace and charm of a Cary Grant then I would bloody my hands on the barbed brilliance of Vaughan Oliver and the combustive filament of v23 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and for more 7.)
As if nothing was suddenly something, I wanted to live life with my hands on the 3rd rail and my mind locked in a vault where orchestras piped colors and nothing but dreams came forth. As far as I was concerned, the world no longer needed another marine biologist.
Cartoonists, Illustrators, and Designers in the mid-80s touched the face of god in a way that hasn’t been displayed since. To some extent, the Emigre Rant book dismisses the 90s with a similar malaise. And it might suffice to say that ingenuity that rests solely on base technology of software has a long way in proving its magic — but that is perhaps its own thread.
Pioneering Art Directors: Fred Woodward (then at Rolling Stone), Brad Benedict (Heavan), Walter Bernard and Rudolf Hoglund (Time), and illustrators: Marshall Arisman , Matt Mahurin (1, 2), Brad Holland , Lou Brooks, Lou Beach, Georganne Deen (1, 2), Gary Panter, Mark Marek, Vivienne Flesher( 1, 2, 3, 4 ), all who were my heroes. Each crossed the threshold of consumerism and made a commercial art that was as much their own as the audience it was shilling to.
This was the time that visual culture was crossing over from sharp Pop iconography to allow for a more sophisticated viewer. In the case of some of the above it was a broad sweep from brooding expressionist styling to a Matissean lyricism. For all it was a concerted effort to push a more complicated styling and abstraction.
In the case of Vaughan Oliver and v23 the studio stood solitary, using photography for packaging in a completely new way opting for a softer palette of dense texture that took as much from abstract expressionism as it did from the largely ignored contemporary art scene of Schnabel, Richter, Kiefer, and Bleckner (1, 2.) And what better than to be of your time? Their seductive use of minimized palettes pitted against a sharp compliment, heavy saturation, or in trademark fashion a light metallic green was the definition of sublime. I bought posters, books, albums, singles, boxed sets� I bought everything and anything with passing acquaintance in order to hold onto these little jewels. Even with as out of place as the Pixies were in the 4ad catalogue at the time (This Mortal Coil, Cocteau Twins, Throwing Muses, etc,) the v23 stamp brought it all together.
All art is a continuation of what came before it �shoulders of giants and all. A few years either way this could just as easily be about Marvin Gaye/ Pushpin Studios/ the Jam/ Blade Runner / Gang of Four / Art Chantry / John Zorn / Art Spiegelman / Dave McKean / the Jesus Lizard, ad infinitum.
Who broke you? The sweetest tangent of 4ad and Vaughan Oliver produced in me a life altering change.
Why does your compass point north?
Forgive me if we’ve covered the �why you do what you do’ ground, but I feel this is important to stop and give our heroes their due. If you must, focus on the design-crush (does someone have their Sagmeister manifesto at hand?) then do what you must
“got hips like Cinderella, must be having a good shame, talking sweet about nothing, cookie i think you’re� tame”
standing in a record shop, looking at the label on the 12inch of the cocteau twins 'pearly dewdrops drops', was like peering through a window into another world-like dreaming mallarmes ideal, a room with a door open to the night, 7 stars reflected in a silver mirror.
23 envelope/v23 forever.
On Sep.04.2003 at 10:30 AM