Eye Candy

With 110 million records sold worldwide and a Nobel Prize under his belt, Bob Dylan has moved on to his next achievement: an exhibition of his artwork, now on view at Halcyon Gallery, in London, through the end of November 2018. Dylan’s 4,000-word Nobel acceptance speech made the case that songs are “meant to be sung, not read,” but, to quote the man himself, the times appear to have been a-changing, as a good portion of the works that make up his new collection, “Mondo Scripto,” are, in fact, handwritten, somewhat altered transcripts of the lyrics from a selection of his songs, stretching up until 2006. Most notable, though, are the pencil drawings that accompany each of the lyrics, plenty of which were, of course, written in a completely different era—the 1960s, dating from even before he made the leap from folk to rock—making them all the more interesting for a now 77-year-old Dylan to reflect on. In most cases, he opted to do so extremely literally; his depiction of “Ballad of a Thin Man,” for one, features the sword-swallower referenced in its lyrics, and “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” and “Maggie’s Farm” look exactly like what their titles describe. See Dylan’s interpretations of classics including “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Like a Rolling Stone,” and which scene he chose from the many packed into the 11 minutes and 20 seconds that make up “Desolation Row,” here.