technique artwork

This has been bugging me for years and I finally decided to get an answer!!!

What is that on the cover of the Technique album?
What's it called?
Where is it located?

Someone here must know,

Thanks in advance

It's a sculpture of a cherub, rendered 'psychedelic' by Peter Saville using the dichromat technique. There's a similar one of Louis XIV, the Sun King on the Round and Round single sleeve which came out at the same time...

According to Factory Records: The Complete Graphic Album, "These figurative elements are also symbolic of the excesses that would characterise rave culture - the bacchanalian cherub and the Sun King - even if this was not a conscious statement on the designers' part."

wasn't bacchus the greek god of wine/ excess? hardly cherubic....

Steve Lea wrote: According to Factory Records: The Complete Graphic Album, "These figurative elements are also symbolic of the excesses that would characterise rave culture - the bacchanalian cherub and the Sun King - even if this was not a conscious statement on the designers' part."

Back in the '70s in front of Studio 54 there supposedly was a statue of Narcissus. The Technique cover is the same thing, even if it was a decade later.

I seem to recall that this like Waiting For The Sirens` Call wasnt the artwork originally planned for use,and it was a last minute change.

Could explain why Fine Time and Run2 have no connection.

From the Niagara Discog site:

"The statue on the sleeve is a a posterized variation of the famous Manneken Pis (Peeing Boy) in Brussels."

However, FAC243 (Technique Cherub) states the following:

"Factory's "catalogue" number for Steve Mason's cherub as used on cover of Technique."

and from an interview with Saville:

"Technique album for New Order, 1989

One day I said to Trevor: “I want a picture of a flower for the lobby of IBM in the year 2000.” And he was like: “Mmm, like an X ray?” And I said: “Well maybe like an X ray but not an X ray.” A few weeks later Trevor proposed a new way of making pictures which became like silk screening but with light. By 1988, we were really playing around and experimenting with this technique and at the same time New Order made an album called Technique. They went off to Ibiza in 1988, discovered ecstasy in the clubs and came back to England with one of the first rock-dance-ecstacy tracks, Fine Time. I was looking for something to use this photographic process that Trevor had developed and I found this cherub in an antique shop in London. A year ago someone writing a piece about this cover referred to the cherub as being bacchanalian. At the time, I hadn’t consciously thought of that but bacchanalian was quite a good reference point for 1988 and 1989."

:)

SUPERB Nick.Wanted reminding what it was all meant to be and this explains some of it rather well.

It certainly isn't the Mannequin Pis, which looks very much like pic. 07 on this page:

http://homepage.mac.com/simon_aughton/belgium/brussels3/2/

More importantly, the cherub also looks like it's having a tank

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manneken_Pis

There is a lot of info online, now that I know the name. The history behind the artwork is also interesting. Thanks for all the info.

I also a QuickTime clip of him dispensing free beer (I love living in Brussels):

http://web.mac.com/simon\_aughton/iWeb/Stuff/MannequinMovie.html