Exhibitions

Bamalama Gallery was created by Bamalama owner John Brett to highlight various events that are hosted at the shop. Over the years we have hosted book launches for famous music related authors, exhibitions of famous photographers, painters, designers and specific musical era related rare posters.

Bamalama is known for the exceptional quality of its work and has collaborated with various art institutions across the world (including the V&A ,TATE Liverpool & The Mucha Foundation) with loans from John’s personal archive & the commissioning of limited edition archival prints to the institutions’ shops.

Visitors to the Bamalama Gallery will be greeted with an ever changing, and mind expanding, selection of vintage posters to buy as the celebration continues. Due to the rare or limited nature of certain items once an item has been sold it will not be repeated.

Best of all you will get a chance to come in and chat to John himself about the subjects that he knows and loves so well – music related exhibitions.

Visit the Bamalama Gallery to see about our events (past, current and upcoming). Sign up to be informed so you never miss something special!

Bamalama Takes a Trip: A Celebration of 60`s Graphic Design

Celebrating the revolutionary & anarchic world of 60s graphic design, the Bamalama Gallery hosts

'Bamalama Takes a Trip' from 21 October - 21 December 2019.

Capturing the ideals, rhetoric and visions of the time in a graphic format, as distinctively as any of the music and fashions of the 60s, the show will feature a carefully curated selection of rare posters (with a mixture of not for sale & sale items) plus limited edition Hapshash & The Coloured Coat‟ prints by renowned graphic designers Nigel Waymouth & Michael English.

Hapshash's 'SAVE EARTH NOW' design, last printed 20 years ago, has been especially re-released for the exhibition. The psychedelic design features delicate koi carp, a flock of fantastical birds, images from the Kama Sutra, Zen garden imagery and the Hindu goddess Kali, all in a mind blowing color way of deep gold, sunshine yellow, spring green and ultramarine blue. The message is starkly simple and one that pauses people to think - this was a statement that was being spread over 50 years ago.

The focus on Hapshash continues with further limited edition screen prints of advertising posters for the legendary UFO club on Tottenham Court Road, The Marquee Club on Wardour Street, the original „Granny Takes a Trip‟ fashion boutique on the Kings Road and Jimi Hendrix`s work on Track Records.

Then & Now

Whilst being a reflection of the explosive vitality of the original artwork from the decade, `Bamalama Takes a Trip’ also provides a resonance to today. Recently commissioned commemorative work by Nigel Waymouth for Asian Fashion retailer JOYCE, demonstrates the affection that the bright colors and mystical influences of the 60s still have in people`s consciousness.

For the original 'Joyce' design Waymouth took inspiration from the electric Hong Kong skyline at dusk, creating a neon pink starry backdrop for the poster with each detail having a symbolic meaning. A phoenix for peace and prosperity, Chinese dragons to signify strength and luck, the circular dragon coil for longevity, with water, air fire and earth elements all represented. A hot air balloon provides a finishing human and  whimsical touch to the print.

Previous Shows and Exhibitions - Rebellion Yell

The exhibition celebrates an exciting period in UK's music scene. The Bamalama Poster Gallery with the collaboration of Galerie & CO119 (Paris, France) are delighted to present an exhibition of Japanese Photographer Herbie Yamaguchi. Herbie Yamaguchi moved to London in the late '70s, witness to the exploding punk movement centred against the status quo, he finds in the English capital and the effervescent music scene the ideal arena to become a photographer. On an evening like any other, an encounter in the London tube changed the life of a young, shy, Japanese photographer. On his way back home he spotted Joe Strummer, from The Clash, in the same carriage on the London Tube. “I turned to him and asked him if he would be kind enough to let me take some Photographs of him and he answered, ‘You can click away of whatever you want, That’s Punk’” recalls Herbie Yamaguchi. Those words were decisive in Herbie’s career, giving him confidence to be a photographer.

50 years later, this emblematic line also becomes the title of one of his latest books. Herbie says that the day he became a photographer was not the day he acquired his own camera, but the day he found his photographic subject. London allowed Herbie to refine his photographic themes. He became the echo of this creative scene evolving in London, which was then, the city where artists from all over the world were gathering. The “New Wave”and “New Romantic” movements emerged, and allowed Herbie to go further in his photographic approach. He goes to photograph the emblematic figures of the time as well as the young underground scene. His dire economic situation brought him to portray these musical cult figures out of studio, in their natural environment. As a consequence, Yamaguchi’s shots are spontaneous and delicate, and show the intimate side of this revolutionary phenomenon.

On the walls of Bamalama Poster Gallery, amongst the original music posters and Memorabilia, one can encounter Joe Strummer listening to a record with Ian Dury, Alan Wilder, from Depeche Mode in the stairwell with his cat, Billy Idol in a club… So many singular visions of stars so often photographed. Herbie Yamaguchi will be signing his book You can click away of whatever you want, That’s Punk and also a limited number of special edition with print. Published in 2017 by Super Labo, Tokyo and Galerie & co 119 Paris.