Art Knowledge News
'[i]Who Shot Rock & Roll[/i] - A Photographic History' to be Featured at The Brooklyn Museum |
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| Written by rubin |
| Tuesday, 09 June 2009 03:01 |
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 From its earliest days, rock and roll was captured in
photographs that personalized and frequently eroticized the musicians.
Photographers were handmaidens to the rock-and-roll revolution, and their
work communicates the social and cultural transformations that rock helped
bring about from the 1950s to the present. This exhibition is a history
not of rock and roll, but of the men and women who have photographed it
and given the music its visual identity. Featuring approximately 175 works by 105 photographers, Who Shot Rock & Roll is organized in six sections: images taken behind the scenes; snapshots of young musicians at the beginning of their careers; photographs of live performances that display the energy of the bands on stage; images of the crowds and fans; portraits that go beyond the surface and celebrity of the musicians; and conceptual images and album covers highlighting the creative and collaborative efforts between the image makers and the subjects. Among the works on view are such iconic images as William “Red” Robertson’s erotic 1955 photo of a pelvis-thrusting Elvis Presley which appeared on his first album; The Clash’s London Calling album cover by Pennie Smith depicting Paul Simonon smashing his Fender bass guitar; the contact sheet of Bob Gruen’s portrait of John Lennon in a sleeveless New York City T-shirt; Don Hunstein’s photograph of Bob Dylan walking with his girlfriend Suze Rotolo down a snowy Greenwich Village street; David LaChapelle’s image of Lil Kim as a bikini-clad cop; and Anton Corbijn’s shoot of U2 for their Joshua Tree album. The exhibition will also feature photographs by Diane Arbus, Annie Leibovitz, Woodstock photographer Barry Feinstein, Jim Marshall, Ryan McGinley, Linda McCartney, Mark Seliger, and Albert Watson.  Most
of the photographs in the exhibition were uncovered in the photographer’s
own files. Rarely, if ever exhibited pictures include a 1963 photograph by
Philip Townsend of the Rolling Stones; an image of James Brown surrounded
by female fans shot by actor Dennis Hopper; the working photographs and
album cover by Jean-Paul Goude of Grace Jones for Island Life; the contact
sheet from Bob Gruen’s famous 1974 rooftop shoot of John Lennon; the full
sequence of never-before-exhibited photographs by Ed Caraeff of Jimi
Hendrix at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967; the 1976 photograph by
Roberta Bayley used on the Ramones first album; Amy Winehouse on her
wedding day by Max Vadukul; the four classic 1967 Beatles portraits by
Richard Avedon; Ike and Tina Turner at Club Paradise in Memphis in 1962 by
the African-American photographer Ernest Withers; and an approximately
nine-by-seven-foot tour-de-fource by German photographer Andrea Gursky of
Madonna performing in 2001. The exhibition will also include music videos by artists featured in the exhibition, an eighty-image slide show by Henry Diltz, and a rock-and-roll chronology made from actual album covers. Gail Buckland is an author, lecturer, curator, and authority on photography. She is the former Olympus Visiting Professor of the History of Photography at the Cooper Union, New York City, where she has taught since 1979. At Sarah Lawrence College she held the Nobel Chair in Art and Cultural History. Ms. Buckland is the former Curator of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain and has curated numerous exhibitions including Fox Talbot and the Invention of Photography at the Pierpont Morgan Library; Visions of Liberty at the New-York Historical Society; and From Today Painting is Dead: The Beginnings of Photography at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. The Brooklyn Museum, housed in a 560,000-square-foot, Beaux-Arts building, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the country. Its world-renowned permanent collections range from ancient Egyptian masterpieces to contemporary art, and represent a wide range of cultures. Only a 30-minute subway ride from midtown Manhattan, with its own newly renovated subway station, the Museum is part of a complex of nineteenth-century parks and gardens that also includes Prospect Park, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and the Prospect Park Zoo. Visit the Brooklyn Museum at : http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/ Click on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~ |
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