Narcolepsy

Narcolepsy Bed Post: The one where you think you can see everything - Mixed Media (wood, objects), 2003

One of our eternal heroes, Dave McKean, is exhibiting a retrospective in Milan from the 15th of January to the 12th of February. This is being announced as "the first large retrospective dedicated in europe to this indoubtable master of multimedia", an assertion it's hard to contradict considering its over 400 original works exposed, plus uninterrupted projection of his short movies and video-clips, plus of course the presence of the man himself at the vernissage and at Spazio Oberdan on the 17th.
Unfortunately, this reporter will extremely probably not be able to be present at this much-too-short event, having blown most of his money over the past month on travels to bologna, modena and rome, books, comics and out-of-print Pizzicato Five cds. But i'm posting this so whoever might be interested in animation, design, illustration, short films or even just seeing something inspiring and stunningly unexpected can pop by if they're in the neighbourhood. Or plan to fly in from another continent, it looks like it's going to be that good.

Pictured below: The Week Before - Film Poster, 1998



(I had a chance to speak to Dave McKean in december, 2003 after the screening of some of his short films in Trieste. We spoke very briefly about The Artist as a demigod, his filmed works eventually being published on DVD - patience, young Jedi - and Django Reinhardt. Then i had my copy of Dust Covers autographed. Then some youngsters showed up with A4 sheets of white paper asking for a sketch, which he very politely dedicated the rest of his time to, making me feel like an idiot for not just asking him to draw something instead of wasting time with stupid questions.)