Bob Dylan’s dazzling back pages
MONDO SCRIPTO (Halcyon Gallery, London) Verdict: Don’t think twice ★★★★★
LONDON’S New Bond Street is a far cry from Highway 61, but the fashionable Mayfair locale is currently home to a Bob Dylan exhibition that will delight fans of the singer.
Mondo Script features 60 handwritten Dylan lyric sheets, plus his graphite drawings.
As a retrospective of a performer who brought gravitas and poetry to pop, the show is a triumph.
More intimate than similar recent events devoted to David Bowie and Pink Floyd, it succeeds by putting the onus firmly on Dylan’s enduring artistry.
As well as his drawings and meticulously re-written words, the display features his paintings, sculptures, a video room and a wall dedicated to the cue cards famously used in the promotional clip for 1965’s Subterranean Homesick Blues.
The drawings occasionally interpret his lyrics too obviously. Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door is represented by 16 separate frames, including one of a fist banging on the entrance to a church. I Shall Be Released features a woman behind bars.
Others are more understated, with Mr Tambourine Man illustrated by a ‘haunted, frightened tree’ and Forever Young by a zoot-suited jazz singer.
But, ahead of next month’s deluxe reissue of his classic Blood On The Tracks album, it’s a fascinating insight into an American musical giant.
MONDO Scripto is at the Halcyon Gallery, 144 New Bond Street, london, until November 30. Admission is free (halcyongallery.com).