Last chance to catch this extraordinary experiential exhibition! The Rock & Roll Public Library at London’s Farsight Gallery must close after this Saturday 22nd March, 2025.
The personal collection and archive of Mick Jones, RRPL is a large, material archive of 20th century pop culture, collected over a lifetime, which launched the first issue of its periodic magazine on 1st March to coincide with the opening of the exhibition which runs from 12 noon – 7pm daily.
Collected by British musician, songwriter and producer Mick Jones (The Clash, Big Audio Dynamite), RRPL includes thousands of items, including books, comics, magazines, musical equipment, literature, art, clothing, ephemera, as well as music and film in every format, revealing a wide network of influences that span the entire 20th century.
“The magazine to me is like a record, with each article a separate track and it tells a story – my story. And by extension through our shared culture, all of our stories. I hope that anyone who reads it will enjoy it.”
Mick Jones
The new Rock & Roll Public Library Magazine is created to share elements of the archive and serves as a curated selective journey through the collection. A portable exhibition in itself, it invites the reader to find their own connections and inspirations from the Library’s wide-ranging artefacts. Edited by the RRPL team and featuring three different covers, the first issue focuses on DIY culture – from punk rock fanzines to fashion, art school to dole queues, four-track home cassette demos to high-tech studios – a ragged map to aid further exploration and, hopefully, to inspire yet more creation. Issue 1 will be available to buy at Farsight Gallery from 1st March 2025. Or register your interest for online sales and other retail outlets at www.rocknrollpl.com/magazine
To mark the launch of the magazine, the experiential exhibition of The Rock & Roll Public Library opened to the public at the Farsight Gallery, London on 1st March. The most comprehensive and in-depth exhibition of the RRPL to date, showcasing previously unseen material and artefacts, the exhibition will celebrate over-the-counter-culture, featuring elements of bookshops, newsstands, comic book stores, record shops and video rental libraries. This is a celebration of pre-digital – the analogue, the physical pop culture history of the 20th century and beyond.
Selected by Mick Jones and the RRPL team, highlights of the exhibition will include: a phantasmagoric recreation of a living room where visitors can use items from the archive such as Mick’s home recorded VHS tapes, books, comics and newspapers from another time; guests can browse through and listen to a selection of his record collection in a recreation of a 1970’s listening booth; plus a visual art installation in the style of a Kiosk that will sell the magazine and other bespoke RRPL merchandise.
The Rock & Roll Public Library – 22nd March 2024 Farsight Gallery, rocknrollpl.com
Exhibition Production by Lauren Estelle Jones
About The Rock & Roll Public Library:
The Rock & Roll Public Library (RRPL) is a collection of mostly 20th century pop culture, an archive encompassing tens of thousands of items, including books, comics, magazines, musical equipment, art, clothing and ephemera, as well as music and film in every format.
Collected over a lifetime by British musician, songwriter and producer Mick Jones (The Clash, Big Audio Dynamite). The RRPL reveals a web of influences that span the entire 20th century—a cultural history told by context, connection, and juxtaposition – it is an extensive collection which is ever-growing and always evolving.
There can be few places where scarce beat poetry pamphlets sit amongst a family of Simpsons Pez dispensers, or where Al Capone’s tie rests next to cigarette cards of royalty. The unique nature of the RRPL comes from the fact that it tells the story of popular culture through everyday items and ephemeral objects as much as it does through valuable historic artifacts.
About the exhibition:
The Rock & Roll Public Library exhibition will celebrate over-the-counter-culture, featuring elements of bookshops, newsstands, comic book stores, record shops and video rental libraries. This is a celebration of pre-digital—the analogue, the physical pop culture history of the 20th century and beyond – the aim being to inspire others to create, make connections and remember.
At the heart of the RRPL archive is the unique collection of artefacts and personal items from Mick’s life and times as an art student, to The Clash and Big Audio Dynamite — clothes, musical equipment, lyrics, notebooks—as well as previously unseen photographs and ephemera. A selection of these rock and roll artefacts is included in the exhibition to represent this very special, exceptional view of cultural history.
Previous iterations of the RRPL have been exhibited twice at CHELSEA Space, 2009 & 2010; Summer Show Underneath the Westway, 2009; Norwich University College of the Arts, 2010; on Peter Blake’s CCA Art Bus, 2010; The Subway Gallery, 2012; as part of the 56th Venice Biennale, 2015; and Museo Jumex in Mexico City (an intervention by artist Laureana Toledo) 2019. IG @rocknrollpl
