Take That and Kraak addiction

KRAAK Gallery are hosting a new exhibition and city walk based around the legacy of Take That and their dedicated fans. Designed to take us back to a pre-digital, pre-Facebook world, the exhibition ethnographically encapsulates the Take That (‘Thatter’) fan society.

This exhibition invites a lot of scholarly debate, particularly amongst those who remember the effect Take That had during the 90s and their ‘exciting’ reunion in the new millennium.

It details a mosaic of fan art, fan collectivism and fan ‘creativity’. Fans viewing the exhibition can expect a vast array of 90s memorabilia; FBs, slams, crams and decos, offstage personal photos from band meetings, a map of international links between penpals in the old days and the chance to participate in the creation of the ‘Thatter Reunion Board’. The latter, a place to reconnect with old penpals and Take That fans, is designed to encourage storytelling and boost the fan community. This could be a superfan’s idea of heaven, or a sane person’s ideal of hell – you decide.

The Kraak Gallery also offers a Take That Walking Tour, which will run from 3-13 June. This walking tour will mark the beginning of the Take That tale up to the very present by revealing the places, faces and stories along the track. 

The general public can apparently expect to gain knowledge about the creativity of fans and the effects fandom has. The best we can hope for is that this exhibition will present a potentially interesting analysis of fandom due to its anthropological study of the importance of fans in popular music culture. Naturally, it is important to remember that without the fans, the music industry simply would not exist.

This exhibition invites a lot of scholarly debate, particularly amongst those who remember the effect Take That had during the 90s and their ‘exciting’ reunion in the new millennium. This exhibition is a joint project by the University of Salford and the University of Manchester, it has the potential to shine from a theoretical, sociological point of view. No it really does.

The exhibition and tour takes place at Kraak Gallery, 11 Stevenson Square, Manchester. The exhibition admission costs £5 per person and the tour costs £8.00 per person. The tour runs for up to two hours and begins at noon and 2.30pm. Exhibition will run 2-28 June 2011. All tickets can be pre-booked by emailing info@fan-networks-exhibition.org