Visually, it was everything the music it was mean to represent was: Sleek, streamlined, sexy.
One of the most iconic images of the ‘80s is the album cover of Duran Duran’s 1982 sophomore full-length, Rio, which marries an illustration by Patrick Nagel and design by Malcolm Garrett.
There’s also album and single sleeve art to consider, and with that the associated promotional materials advertising the music, live appearances, and, of course, videos. That obviously goes beyond the makeup and immaculately tailored clothes, and the flashy reputation-securing videos. It’s a coffee table book in that one might want to have it on display, but it’s also assuredly a book to be pored over from cover to cover, in large part a credit to the archival photography by Christine Born.Īdding to the prestige of Beautiful Colors is a foreword by Duran Duran’s dandyish co-founder and keyboardist Nick Rhodes, a man whom one imagines has had a key perspective in how the band has been presented over the years. For the rest of us, much of Golub’s archives are stored online at, where we can click from lush image to image to our heart’s content.īut there is also Beautiful Colors: The Posters of Duran Duran, a book which should not only be considered an essential purchase by Duranies the world over, but should also serve as inspiration for anyone else trying something like this in the future.īeautiful Colors – named after a widely circulated unreleased song from the band’s mid-2000’s reunion, “Beautiful Colours” – is a weighty tome, independently released by Durandy Productions, but with the high end quality one might expect to have found at the recently shuttered Rizzoli flagship store on W. Of course, not everyone can make it to Pacific Northwest, and even if they could there’s only so much time in the day. When Duranies visit the Seattle area, Golub generously gives them entry to the archives, letting their eyes fix on one lush image after another. Golub’s meticulously catalogued archives are kept in a climate-controlled storage facility, and often when a print or poster is in less than mint condition, he has it professionally mended, with the same care one might see given a great renaissance-era tapestry. Golub is a collector’s collector, an archivist, a curator of one of the most impressive collections of posters and ads, books and magazines, pinups and memorabilia not only of Duran Duran, but of any artist. That’s true of so many of us who are enthusiasts of one pursuit or another, but when you’re thinking of yourself as a collector, you’re still off the mark.
It’s a pithy moniker, one which falls short of his importance not only to the greater story of Duran Duran, but also to the even greater story of fandom. In the world of the Duran Duran fan – Duranies to devotees – Golub is known as Durandy.
There are fans, there are FANS, and there is Andrew Golub. Duran Duran's 'Beautiful Colors' in PostersĪbove from the collection of Andrew Golub.
0 kommentar(er)
