Goldfrapp delivers the pick of the pop-inspired exhibitions No sooner had I predicted in my last column that more art galleries would follow the success of the V&A's David Bowie Is with more shows based around pop stars, than several press releases on that very subject landed on my desk. Virgin records are celebrating their anniversary with a week-long show in London next week called 40 Years of Disruptions, while Boy George is teaming up with artist Mark Wardell for a joint presentation of their respective photography and paintings based around the Blitz Club scene. But by far the most intriguing was the announcement that Alison Goldfrapp, from the successful electropop duo, was curating a show at the Lowry based around her interests and influences. Many pop stars, Dylan the latest among them, have got their own work into galleries, but it has been rarer for musicians to turn their hand to the art of thematically curating a show with other artists" works. Alison Goldfrapp is at least qualified beyond her musical success: she graduated from Middlesex University in the early Nineties with a degree in fine art where for her final show she memorably milked a Jersey cow as she yodelled along. And with the band Goldfrapp, she created a strong, mutating visual identity, full of little red riding hood costumes and animal heads, along with videos with the same noirish, fairy-tale style that matched their eerie, haunting music. Visitors to her exhibition, part of a series the Lowry is presenting as The Presenter as Curator, might expect a sexy, darkly lit exploration of imagery from the art of the Weimar Republic, with Marlene Dietrich films showing next to photography from the glam-era of pop, possibly illuminated by giant glitterballs. But Goldfrapp presents a much quieter, more thoughtful, traditional small-scale show, the walls all pale blues and whites, focused on her fascination with imagery of fairytales, folklore and metamorphosis. With a single nod to Little Red Riding Hood in an unknown Welsh painting and classic fairy-tale illustrations from the likes of Arthur Rackham and the Danish artist Kay Nielsen, Goldfrapp then works her way through photography, collages, sketches and paintings from - among others - John Stezaker, Leonora Carrington, Caragh Thuring, Toshiko Okanoue and Francesca Woodman. The works are on the whole small scale, elliptical and intriguing, forcing the viewer to fill in the ghostly narratives going on inside the frame. There are only a few films, David Lynch's Lost Highway, The Wicker Man and a couple of recent videos from Goldfrapp's latest album Tales of Us, where sequins make their only appearance. The concentration on less starry female artists and works not usually shown over here, including American folk artist Henry Darger, is impressive and apart from the ethereal soprano of Goldfrapp singing her latest single, Annabel, there is a marked absence of music. Goldfrapp herself is an elusive presence too, represented at the end by a stuffed white owl and rows of tiny ornamental animals from her own collections. The only real moment of drama comes from an enlarged, colour-saturated photography of red stilettos amongst the grass by Anna Fox and Scottish artist Anja Gallaccico's bronze cast of an upturned apple tree. Three years in the making, there is clearly a seriousness and erudition behind this show, in contrast to a lot of the flashes and bangs pop is dressed up with to make it "art." If the show is defiantly not about telling you much more about Alison Goldfrapp, some more information on these diverse artists and her relationship to them would have been welcome, but the stylistic approach of the Lowry bodes well for further shows planned in this series.