Pink Floyd exhibition announced for Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) is hoping to replicate the success of its David Bowie exhibition with a major retrospective of Pink Floyd.
The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains, marking 50 years since the release of the band's first single, will include a laser light show and previously unseen concert footage.
The "immersive" show will feature 350 objects and artefacts, including instruments and original artworks.
It will run from May to October 2017.
The V&A promised "an immersive, multi-sensory and theatrical journey through Pink Floyd's extraordinary world" which will "chronicle the music, iconic visuals and staging of the band, from the underground psychedelic scene in 1960s London to the present day".
'Uniting sound and vision'
Pink Floyd were formed in 1965 by four students - Syd Barrett, Roger Waters, Rick Wright and Nick Mason. Waters, Wright and Mason had met while studying at the Regent Street Polytechnic.
Barrett left three years later after one album and was replaced by guitarist David Gilmour.
The band has sold more than 200 million albums worldwide - including 1973's The Dark Side Of The Moon, which stayed in the US album chart for more than a decade.
Drummer Mason attended the launch at the London museum, which flew a giant inflatable pig over its roof for the occasion - like the one pictured above Battersea Power Station on the cover of the 1977 album Animals.
Mason said the other remaining members of the band are collaborating with the show - despite the fact he was the only one present at the launch.
"There was a school of thought that I'd been not enormously excited about it but that's not quite true," he said. "Maybe it was one of the others. I'd always seen it as possible.
"I did think we'd be short of material. That's turned out to be entirely incorrect. I can't tell you how much stuff won't fit in.
"We seem to have a bit of everything. My favourite drumkits. Quite a lot of the old machinery that we used for recording - that's now completely obsolete with all the digital technology."
Hipgnosis, Pink Floyd's creative director which designed the cover for The Dark Side of the Moon, and Stufish, which created the band's sets, are working on the show.
V&A director Martin Roth said: "The V&A is perfectly placed to exhibit the work of a band that is as recognisable for its unique visual imagery as for its music.
"Pink Floyd is an impressive and enduring British design story of creative success. Alongside creating extraordinary music, they have for over five decades been pioneers in uniting sound and vision, from their earliest 1960s performances with experimental light shows, through their spectacular stadium rock shows, to their consistently iconic album covers."
The exhibition will also include items from stage performances, as well as instruments, handwritten lyrics, architectural drawings and psychedelic posters.
After it was announced in 2012, the V&A's David Bowie exhibition became the fastest-selling in the museum's history.
The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains runs from May 13 to October 1 next year. Tickets are on sale now.