Next week, the Brooklyn Museum opens an exhibit solely devoted to rock ‘n’ roll photographers from 1955 through today.
Who Shot Rock & Roll will featurean impressive collection for sure, featuring around 175 photos by 105 photographers: including everything from Andreas Gursky‘s nine-by-seven-foot tour-de-force of Madonna performing in 2001, to Don Hunstein‘s photo of Bob Dylan walking with then girlfriend Suze Rotolo down a snowy Greenwich Village street, to Dennis Hopper‘s photo of James Brown, surrounded by female fans, to the contact sheet of Bob Gruen‘s portrait of John Lennon in a sleeveless New York City t-shirt, or Amy Winehouse on her wedding day (above), shot by Max Vadukul, and William “Red” Robertson’s 1955 portrait of a pelvis-thrusting Elvis, which later became his first album cover.
Most photos are on loan from the photographers’ personal collections.
The exhibit will also include music videos by artists featured in the exhibit, an 80-image slide show and a rock ‘n’ roll chronology made out of actual album covers.
Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History opens October 30, 2009, and runs through January 31, 2010. For more info, visit www.brooklynmuseum.org
For his newest series, “Alteration,” artist/sculptor Greg Lauren has hand-sewn treated Japanese paper to simulate various materials (wool, cotton, gabardine), frayed edges, wrinkles and folds. Each of his paper garments represents a different male character or archetype, all personally relevant to Lauren (who happens to be the nephew of fashion legend Ralph Lauren), and painstakingly crafted over the last year and a half. Each piece explores complex ideas regarding inherited ideals, and the stimuli one encounters on the way to owning his individual identity. As Lauren says, “I was taught to dress like Cary Grant and JFK, but actually felt more like Charlie Chaplin or Oliver Twist.” The resulting pieces are absolutely incredible – beautiful, exacting, layered with multiple meanings. The show is on view at 28 Wooster Street through November 1st. For more info, check out my review at clearmag.com.
Photographer Paolo Ventura builds intricate, miniature sets from found objects (often flea market finds) and shoots them to appear life-size, creating haunting, narrative series. His first book, War Souvenir, explored fictional wartime scenes. His newest book, Winter Stories (just out from Aperture & Contrasto), depicts scenes from the memory bank of a fictional circus performer looking back on his life during his final moments…for more info, visit Ventura’s website.
To read my Graphis interview w/Ventura from a few years ago, click here.
Check out my brand new review for Coolhunting here.
Droog‘s “Tableau Tablecloth” was created by photographer Maurice Scheltens using the photogram technique, and reveals the aftermath of a (successful?) dinner party. This super-cool tablecloth comes in 6 and 8-person setting sizes that’ll cost you a pretty penny, running $560 and $630 each.
