HEAD OVER ART

There's not too much for purists to love at the new exhibition of artist Stanley Donwood and musician Thom Yorke's work. Although Roisin O'Connor feels that is no bad thing at all

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Famous pairings have yielded some of music's most recognisable and celebrated artworks. Andy Warhol and The Velvet Underground. Peter Blake and The Beatles. Storm Thorgerson and Pink Floyd. Arguably less ingrained in the public consciousness are Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood, who met as students at Exeter University, where they studied fine art and English literature and whose longstanding collaborations have appeared on the front of every album by Radiohead, Yorke and The Smile since 1995's The Bends invoked that instantly iconic image of a CPR dummy's lips parted in ecstasy.

A new exhibition at The Ashmolean in Oxford, where Radiohead formed and a stone's throw from where they played their first gig, at the Jericho Tavern in 1987, explores Yorke and Donwood's work over the past three decades, spanning album covers, etchings, unpublished drawings, and sketchbooks full of the frontman's lyrical scribblings. It's fascinating, and not just for Radiohead fans but for anyone intrigued by the interweaving of sonic and visual art forms.

That symbiotic relationship underpins this entire endeavour, making the negative reviews of This Is What You Get, which critique it solely as an art exhibition, slightly odd. Those raised eyebrows might've come down a bit had the naysayers reminded themselves that the Ashmolean is not a gallery, but a museum home to works that do not adhere to any one strict definition of art. It is impossible to view the vivid acrylic canvases for Radiohead’s 2003 album