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Jon Langford


June 22 to July 28, 2012

The New Gallery (TNG) is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by internationally renowned, multi-disciplinary artist Jon Langford.

Langford’s unique visual style is somewhat familiar to Calgarians already, as it was central to the print promotional campaigns of both the 2009 and 2010 Calgary Folk Music Festivals. Jon Langford will be performing with his band Skull Orchard at the 2012 Calgary Folk Music Festival in July. For additional information please visitcalgaryfolkfest.com

Bio

Jon Langford was born in Newport, Wales, and has been based in Chicago since 1992. He is best known as a founding member of legendary British rock band the Mekons, who he continues to perform and record with after 35 years together. He is also a member of Skull Orchard, Waco Brothers, and The Three Johns. Nashville Radio, published in 2006 was Langford's first collection of paintings, writing, and music. Its recent successor, Skull Orchard Revisited (2010), is an intimate portrait of the South Wales he grew up in and left.

jonlangford.de

Essay

Jon Langford opens Nashville Radio, his first published collection of art, words and music, with a rhetorical question: “So what was the big difference between a song and a painting, or even a gig and an art show? . . . maybe a painting could be like a song? Maybe there is no difference.” It’s proved to be a fertile line of questioning and continues to infuse Langford’s creative processes as both professional musician and visual artist.

Widely recognized for his role in the indefatigable punk band the Mekons since it’s origin in 1977 at art school in Leeds, UK, Langford’s reputation as a painter/printmaker has developed more recently. For many years after leaving art school he didn’t paint at all, saying simply that: “A painter needs a subject and for a long time I didn’t have one.” The inspiration to start up again came to him quite suddenly at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1988.

Tootsie’s is an old beer joint across the alley from the old Ryman Auditorium, where many country musicians would come over to drink between their sets at the original Grand Ole Opry. It’s worth quoting Langford’s epiphany there at length: “Every inch of Tootsie’s walls is covered with old publicity photos . . . rabbits frozen in history’s headlights, signing their contracts and signing away their souls, used up, spat out, and finally forgotten like the waste products of any other industry or theatre of war. As you stand and stare, trying to take it all in, blind optimism and hopeless nostalgia race in opposite directions like freight trains.” The die was cast.

Opportunities to experience Jon Langford’s work in person remain fairly rare, at least outside of his hometown and Austin, TX, where he is represented at the Yard Dog Gallery. His art has gradually become more widely recognized in lithographed mass reproduction, through the cover art he does for his own supplementary musical projects, other indie bands and worthy causes he supports such as the Illinois Coalition Against The Death Penalty.

The suite of mixed-media prints which premieres at TNG this summer is a retrospective survey of many of the significant motifs and characters that have populated Langford’s potent visual art for the past twenty-five years. Skeletal guitarists, blindfolded cowboys, and the omnipresent eye of Hank Williams are all here; the sullied and scratched up depictions of western heroes that initially kick started Langford’s studio practice. Also included are symbolic reminders of his own history, growing up in the deeply permeated seafaring culture of the coast of South Wales – the stuff of sailor’s nightmares in the form of giant whales and other monsters of the deep. In homage to the artist’s preferred musical format, each print in this series is presented in the form of a 7” square, mimicking the cover layout of a 45 rpm vinyl single.

- Tim Westbury, 2012

Tim Westbury is an artist and musician. He holds an Honors degree in Cultural Studies from Trent University and graduated from the Alberta College of Art + Design in 1989. He worked in a broad range of capacities in Media and Visual Arts at the Banff Centre for the Arts from 1991 to 1996, including the role of Assistant Curator of the Walter Phillips Gallery. He has served as Programming Director at The New Gallery in Calgary since 2008.