Make love your goal

Welcome to The pleasuredome Holly Johnson Story, an exhibition at Museum of Liverpool celebrating Holly Johnson’s creative genius, charting his personal life and extraordinary music career over five decades. To quote further, this time from the opening panel of the exhibition:

Holly Johnson is an LGBTQ+ icon whose music career spans an incredible five decades. From his early years in Liverpool punk band Big in Japan, Holly rose to international stardom in the ’80s as the frontman for Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Today, Holly continues to perform as a successful solo artist. His remarkable life has created an enduring legacy and place at the heart of Liverpool’s rich cultural history.

Britain in the 1980s was changing. Social and political unrest paved the way for a cultural revolution, set against a backdrop of synth-pop music and experimental sounds. It was a time of innovation and rebellion, punks, and new wave bands, and at the forefront stood Holly Johnson. These were times of polarised emotions, glamour and sexual liberation, loss, fear, and stigma.

Holly is a trailblazing LGBTQ+ icon who lives openly with HIV. He is a musician, artist and activist, performing and attracting new audiences worldwide. This exhibition tells his story, and shares the experiences of some people, who were part of the gay scene in the 1980s that live with HIV today.

On a diagram comprising pop, art, politics and Liverpool, this exciting new exhibition has me placed bang! in the middle and whilst I wasn’t a big fan of Frankie back in the day, one couldn’t have helped but be mesmerized by the seismic impact they had on pop culture, albeit for a brief period. ZTT, the record label that signed Frankie Goes to Hollywood used artful marketing, design and production to make the most of the raw materials, successfully elevating the band to levels that few saw coming, and in pop, Frankie may be one of the greatest embodiments of the well-known Taoist aphorism – “The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long”, by Lao Tzu. But how brilliantly it burned. There goes a supernova, what a pushover…

I was coming to the end of my time as an art student in Liverpool as Frankie was in the fast lane to Hollywood and I’d been told in no uncertain terms that if I wanted to ‘make it’, I too would have to decamp to the capital for success. So, it was enthralling to see people from my hometown at number one and making waves around the world, but also frustrating to see how London-centric pop culture and commerce was. This exhibition effectively chronicles this journey for Holly, from the dimly lit fringes of local obscurity to the bright lights of the techni-coloured mainstream – and beyond.

To add some personal historical context, there was a burgeoning underground art scene in the city in the eighties, and teenage me enjoyed being part of it, rubbing shoulders with the insouciant local celebrity circle that spawned Frankie Goes to Hollywood and so many others, too numerous (and humorous) to mention here. Café Berlin was a cultural haven and one of the first places in Liverpool where one could sample exotic temptations such as espresso coffee, bagels and hummus, and it was also where I got my first commercial design commission. I created the café’s logo and publicity flyers for their regularly sold-out comedy and music events. I got to see many up-and-coming ‘alternative’ acts, including Mike ‘Austin Powers’ Myers’ standup comedy routine and Thomas Lang’s sultry scallywag jazz, all through a haze of thick cigarette smoke.

Excuse the digression, but places like this (and the Everyman Bistro, Bluecoat and Café Tabac) were where we found our tribes, and they provided an essential escape. The eighties is often portrayed as a period of ‘loadsamoney’ excess, yuppies, big shoulder pads and neon glamour, and Liverpool, whilst not necessarily the raging hard, crime-ridden, no-go-zone that it was often depicted as was a city in a strategic state of managed decline by the villainous Conservative government. The oncoming AIDS pandemic didn’t bring much hedonistic respite for those of us growing up and playing out, either.

To quote again from the exhibition’s publicity:

In the 1980s Britain was changing. Social and political unrest led the way for a cultural revolution, set against a backdrop of synth-pop music and experimental sounds. The ‘80s was a time of innovation and rebellion, punks, and new wave bands, and at the forefront stood Holly Johnson. The Holly Johnson Story celebrates Holly’s creative genius, and marks the 40th anniversary release of Frankie Goes to Hollywood album, ‘Welcome to the Pleasuredome’, featuring songs ‘Relax’, ‘Two Tribes’ and ‘The Power of Love’. This exhibition charts Holly’s early personal life and career, from a young musician to an internationally renowned, openly gay star, living in the public eye. Dealing with the price of fame, coping with an HIV+ diagnosis and unwanted negative press, whilst going it alone as a monumental LGBTQ+ icon. Through polarising emotions of glamour and sexual liberation, alongside fear, loss and stigma, The Holly Johnson Story tells the stories of people who experienced the gay scene in the 1980s, and the devastating impact and legacy of HIV.

The exhibition is a rich visual feast for the eyes and ears. It makes use of an extensive archive of material, much of it directly from Johnson’s personal lockup, broken into especially for the occasion after Holly managed to lose the padlock keys. It is a treat to see all the beautifully designed record sleeves displayed together, Frankie, and the solo works, and Peter Ashworth‘s incredible band portrait, used on the inside sleeve of the Frankie debut album, never looked so lush in all its gigantic, back-lit splendour. Seeing Holly’s beautiful suits as worn in many of his videos is worth the entry price alone.

And finally, I’m extremely proud to have HIV/AIDS public health materials that I designed included in the exhibition. These items were amongst the very first health campaign materials I designed, shortly after getting my first job as a graphic designer for the NHS in Liverpool. Fight the fear with the facts, a message that is perhaps truer today than it was when we devised it nearly four decades ago.

The Holly Johnson Story has been produced by Homotopia, DuoVision Arts and National Museums Liverpool, in collaboration with Holly Johnson. The exhibition is on until 27 July 2025 and tickets can be purchased at Museum of Liverpool and in advance at this link: liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/hollyjohnson

    Leave Your Comment Here

    Recent Comments