With some notable exceptions, Radiohead has good taste in who its members choose to work with. Their music videos have been directed by Jonathan Glazer and Paul Thomas Anderson, and Jonny Greenwood has produced several of their soundtracks, while Thom Yorke scored Luca Guadagnino’s 2018 song. dark wind Remastered, it has the potential to do well in other areas as well. Who can forget how Yorke and Greenwood looked in the movie south park “Scott Tenorman Must Die” (2001) episode, mocking the villain for crying because Cartman killed his parents?
A new exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum, This Is What You Get, celebrates the visual art of the band’s albums and related material. They have collaborated with artist Stanley Donwood on every album since their second album The Bends (1995), which featured a CPR dummy that Yorke and Donwood found on the cover after sneaking into the basement of John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. Since then, Yorke and Donwood have been partners in all of the band’s vast and complex visual language. This return exhibition features more than 180 works, including paintings, digital works, etchings, drawings and lyrical drawings.
Radiohead made unparalleled music, but this exhibition shows the extent to which their stirring album covers wrapped those songs in a universe, an atmosphere, even a spirit. Because the band’s influence was so huge, it may be a chicken-and-egg question of whether their artwork was ahead of its time or simply shaped the public consciousness because of its widespread dissemination.
I think it’s the former. Take empty, malfunctioning landscapes as an example Good computer. This is created by a profound engagement with the present moment: York Plays tomb Raider (1996) were in the studio with Donwood, noting that when the landscape was blurry due to memory errors, it was “the most beautiful thing we had ever seen.” The pair designed the cover using an early Macintosh computer and made it a rule for themselves that they could not undo any changes they made. The end result is victory. In 1997, not many people were making art like this. You have to compare it to contemporary work by luminaries like Julie Mehretu, Richard Prince and Christopher Wool.
Some people like to say they stopped after Amnesia (2001), but Long Live the Thief (2003) and Rainbow (2007) are arguably the visuals. salute to the thief Featuring a faux-naïve painting style – similar to that of today’s popular artists such as Jane Dixon and Stanley Whitney – the spilled wax in the rainbow A look back at Wolfgang Tillmans’ recent efforts to make photography more organic and abstract. In the catalogue, Donwood is most proud of the in the rainbow travel. Radiohead’s practice was precise and comprehensive, and they proved to be consistently on top in almost every aspect.
“this is what you get” will be on display at the Ashmolean Museum until January 11, 2026.
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