Artists celebrate 25 years of Beck's Art Labels

Emma Love
Friday 15 April 2011 00:00 BST
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Go for a drink at The Ten Bells pub in east London this month and you'll see (and hear) Tracey Emin. Not literally of course, but on a Beck's beer label and audio recording as part of the beer brand's celebration of 25 years of Beck's Art Labels.

Similarly, wander into The Owl and the Pussycat just down the road and you'll find Tim Noble and Sue Webster, or pop into Benny's Bar and listen to Richard Long.

These artists plus many more have, over the years, each been commissioned to use the beer label as a blank canvas and create a limited edition art label.

Now, eight of these labels will be on show in various pubs to form an art crawl, where you can also hear the artist discuss the thinking behind their design.

So, there's Emin talking about why she decided on a picture of her in the bath ("I wanted something to look beery and frothy") and curator Anthony Fawcett recalling the reasoning behind Jeff Koons putting Pamela Anderson's legs on a label (the idea came from a painting of Anderson that Koons was doing for an exhibition at the time). To hear the short audio interviews, you simply plug your headphones into a play button in the pub.

Tomorrow, there's also the Art Crawl Live, where students from art colleges have been invited to have a go at designing their own Beck's art label. Six of the best from the emerging talents will be turned into a mural and painted onto a wall on Great Eastern Street by the art collective End of the Line.

www.becks.co.uk

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