Who Shot Rock & Roll
Encyclopedia
Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 to the Present was the first major museum exhibition of Rock music
photography. The exhibit was organized by guest curator Gail Buckland at the Brooklyn Museum
in 2009.
The exhibition toured from 2009-2012 visiting the Brooklyn Museum (Brooklyn, New York), Worcester Art Museum
(Worcester, Massachusetts), Memphis Brooks Museum of Art
(Memphis, Tennessee), Akron Art Museum
(Akron, Ohio), Columbia Museum of Art
(Columbia, South Carolina), Birmingham Museum of Art
(Birmingham, Alabama), Tucson Museum of Art (Tucson, Arizona), Allentown Art Museum
(Allentown, Pennsylvania), and Annenberg Space for Photography (Los Angeles, California).
The exhibition is in six sections: behind the scenes; career beginnings; live performances; crowds and fans; portraits; images and album covers. The exhibit covers over 50 years of rock-and-roll history and encompasses 175 works from more than 100 photographers.
Blondie
played the opening party on October 29 2009. Debbie Harry
changed her hair color to brunette for the occasion.
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
photography. The exhibit was organized by guest curator Gail Buckland at the Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an encyclopedia art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At 560,000 square feet, the museum holds New York City's second largest art collection with roughly 1.5 million works....
in 2009.
The exhibition toured from 2009-2012 visiting the Brooklyn Museum (Brooklyn, New York), Worcester Art Museum
Worcester Art Museum
The Worcester Art Museum, also known by its acronym WAM, houses over 35,000 works of art dating from antiquity to the present day, representing cultures from all over the world. The WAM opened in 1898 in Worcester, Massachusetts, and is the second largest art museum in New England...
(Worcester, Massachusetts), Memphis Brooks Museum of Art
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art is an art museum in Memphis, Tennessee. The Brooks Museum, which was founded in 1916, is the oldest and largest art museum in the state of Tennessee. The museum is a privately funded nonprofit institution located in Overton Park in Midtown Memphis.The original...
(Memphis, Tennessee), Akron Art Museum
Akron Art Museum
The Akron Art Museum is an art museum in Akron, Ohio, USA.The museum first opened its doors on February 1, 1922, as the Akron Art Institute. It was located in two borrowed rooms in the basement of the public library...
(Akron, Ohio), Columbia Museum of Art
Columbia Museum of Art
The Columbia Museum of Art in Columbia, South Carolina has a collection of European and American fine and decorative art that spans several centuries...
(Columbia, South Carolina), Birmingham Museum of Art
Birmingham Museum of Art
Founded in 1951, the Birmingham Museum of Art in Birmingham, Alabama today has one of the finest collections in the Southeast US, with more than 24,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and decorative arts representing a numerous diverse cultures, including Asian, European, American,...
(Birmingham, Alabama), Tucson Museum of Art (Tucson, Arizona), Allentown Art Museum
Allentown Art Museum
The Allentown Art Museum is an art museum located in the city of Allentown, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It was founded in 1934 by a group organized by noted Pennsylvania impressionist painter, Walter Emerson Baum. With its collection of over 13,000 works of art, the Allentown Art Museum...
(Allentown, Pennsylvania), and Annenberg Space for Photography (Los Angeles, California).
Exhibit
The exhibit was a collaboration between Gail Buckland and the Brooklyn Museum of Art, after the museum learned she was writing a book focusing on the photographers behind iconic rock-and-roll photographs. Buckland states in the preface to her book (also named, Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History, 1955-Present), "The Brooklyn Museum... invited me to work with them to develop and curate the most exciting museum show of rock-and-roll photography ever produced. The book serves as the catalogue to this landmark exhibition."The exhibition is in six sections: behind the scenes; career beginnings; live performances; crowds and fans; portraits; images and album covers. The exhibit covers over 50 years of rock-and-roll history and encompasses 175 works from more than 100 photographers.
Blondie
Blondie (band)
Blondie is an American rock band, founded by singer Deborah Harry and guitarist Chris Stein. The band was a pioneer in the early American New Wave and punk scenes of the mid-1970s...
played the opening party on October 29 2009. Debbie Harry
Debbie Harry
Deborah Ann "Debbie" Harry is an American singer-songwriter and actress, best known for being the lead singer of the punk rock and new wave band Blondie. She has also had success as a solo artist, and in the mid-1990s she performed and recorded as part of The Jazz Passengers...
changed her hair color to brunette for the occasion.
Quotes
“I’m not that interested in celebrity,” Buckland said, “Substance and creativity is what interests me. If rock and roll is anything, it’s supposed to be real. That what holds it together, it’s an expression of something deep and honest within us. I chose photos that tell the story with a degree of honesty.”
Photographers
Images from more than 100 photographers are exhibited including:- Bob GruenBob GruenBob Gruen is an American photographer known for his rock 'n' roll photographs.Gruen was born in New York City. He began photographing rock stars with Bob Dylan and served as John Lennon's personal photographer during his time in New York City. Gruen is best known for his photograph of Lennon...
- Pennie SmithPennie SmithPennie Smith is an English photographer, known for having photographed several rock musicians. She specialises in black-and-white photography.Smith attended Twickenham Art school in the late 1960s, studying graphics and fine art...
- Gered MankowitzGered MankowitzGered Mankowitz is a British photographer of the rock music scene over the last 40 years. Some of his portraits of rock musicians, such as The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and Slade, are now part of the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery.-Personal life:His father was the late...
- Kate SimonKate SimonKate Simon was a Polish-born American author.She was born Kaila in Warsaw, Poland, the daughter of David Grobsmith, a shoe designer, and Lonia Grobsmith née Babicz, a corsetiere. Her Jewish family brought her to the United...
- Jill FurmanovskyJill FurmanovskyJill Furmanovsky is a rock photographer born in Zimbabwe.Furmanovsky emigrated with her parents and brother Michael to London in 1965. She studied textile and graphic design at the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design from 1972 to 1974...
- Linda McCartneyLinda McCartneyLinda Louise McCartney, Lady McCartney was an American photographer, musician and animal rights activist. Her father and mother were Lee Eastman and Louise Sara Lindner Eastman....
- Ian Dickson
- Diane ArbusDiane ArbusDiane Arbus March 14, 1923 – July 26, 1971) was an American photographer and writer noted for black-and-white square photographs of "deviant and marginal people or of people whose normality seems ugly or surreal." A friend said that Arbus said that she was "afraid.....
- William PoPsie RandolphPopsie RandolphWilliam “PoPsie” Randolph was an US photographer of Greek descent. The son of Greek immigrants, Randolph capitalized on his early success in music photography of the New York music scene from the 1940s by continuing to photograph many of the music industry's greats but also movie stars, athletes...
- Allan Tannenbaum
- Albert WatsonAlbert Watson (photographer)Albert Watson is a Scottish photographer well known for his fashion, celebrity and art photography, and whose work is featured in galleries and museums worldwide. He has shot over 200 covers of Vogue around the world and 40 covers of Rolling Stone magazine since the mid-1970s...
- Annie LeibovitzAnnie LeibovitzAnna-Lou "Annie" Leibovitz is an American portrait photographer.-Early life and education:Born in Waterbury, Connecticut, Leibovitz is the third of six children. She is a third-generation American whose great-grandparents were Jewish immigrants, from Central and Eastern Europe. Her father's...
- Andreas GurskyAndreas GurskyAndreas Gursky is a German visual artist known for his enormous architecture and landscape color photographs, often employing a high point of view...
- Michael PutlandMichael PutlandMichael Putland is an English music photographer who "never had a day off in the ‘70s". He has photographed thousands of artists, literally from Abba to Zappa.-Biography:Born in 1947 just outside London, Putland took up photography at the age of 9...
- Baron WolmanBaron WolmanBaron Wolman is an American photographer best known for his work in the late 1960s for the music magazine Rolling Stone, becoming the magazine's first editor of photography from 1967 to 1970.-Early photographic career:...
- Henry DiltzHenry DiltzHenry Stanford Diltz is a folk musician and photographer, who has been active since the 1960s....
- Andy Earl
- Barry FeinsteinBarry FeinsteinBarry Feinstein was an American photographer who was reputed to have produced over 500 album covers. Barry Feinstein began in his youth as a photographer. In 1955 he was engaged as an assistant at Life magazine...
- Max VadukulMax VadukulMax Vadukul is a photographer who has worked mostly in America. He is noted for his fashion photography, portraits published in The New Yorker and many covers for Rolling Stone magazine.-Early life and career:...
- Nitin Vadukul
- Josh Cheuse
- Richard AvedonRichard AvedonRichard Avedon was an American photographer. An obituary published in The New York Times said that "his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America's image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century."-Photography career:Avedon was born in New York City to a Jewish Russian...
- Lynn GoldsmithLynn GoldsmithLynn Goldsmith is an American recording artist, a film director and a celebrity portrait photographer. Her work has appeared on the covers and in publications in many countries for the past 35 years. She has done over 100 album covers...
- Ed CaraeffEd CaraeffEd Caraeff is a photographer, illustrator and graphic designer, who has worked largely in the music industry. He has art directed, photographed and designed hundreds of record album covers from 1967 to 1982 for numerous artists, including Elton John, Carly Simon, Three Dog Night and Dolly Parton...
- Judy Linn
- Ryan McGinleyRyan McGinleyRyan McGinley is an American photographer living in New York City who began making photographs in 1998. In 2003, at the age of 25, McGinley was one of the youngest artist to have a solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art. He was also named Photographer of the Year in 2003 by American Photo...
- MaripolMaripolMaripol was brought up in France before moving to New York, USA in 1976. She is an artist, film producer, fashion designer and stylist who has had an influence on the looks of many influential artists, including Grace Jones, Deborah Harry, and Madonna. Maripol is also a Polaroid artist...
- Godlis
- Ian Tilton
- Dennis HopperDennis HopperDennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors' Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1954 and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant...
- Kwame Brathwaite
- Henry DiltzHenry DiltzHenry Stanford Diltz is a folk musician and photographer, who has been active since the 1960s....
- Roberta Bayley
- Elaine MayesElaine MayesElaine Mayes is an American photographer.Known for her portraits of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury residents in 1967-8 and for her iconic images of rock and roll performers in the late 1960s, Mayes' subject matter has also included landscapes and conceptual projects including her series,...
- Jerry SchatzbergJerry SchatzbergJerry Schatzberg is a photographer and film director.-Career:Schatzberg was born to a Jewish family of furriers and grew up in the Bronx. He photographed for magazines such as Vogue, Esquire and McCalls. He made his debut as a feature film director with 1970's Puzzle of a Downfall Child starring...
- Walter Sanders
- Astrid KirchherrAstrid KirchherrAstrid Kirchherr is a German photographer and artist and is well known for her association with The Beatles and her photographs of The Beatles during their Hamburg days....
- Don Hunstein
- James MollisonJames MollisonJames Mollison, AO, was Acting Director of the National Gallery of Australia from 1971 to 1977 and Director from 1977 – 1990. He was Director of the National Gallery of Victoria from 1989 to 1995....
- Laura Levine
External links
- http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/rock_and_roll/
- The Art of Rock’ N’ Roll NY Times slideshow
- Who Shot Rock and Roll NPR Morning Edition report (mp3MP3MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
) - Who Shot Rock and Roll Exhibition at Brooklyn Museum Jianai Jenny Chen's photos from the opening night.
- VH1 Super Exclusives: Who Shot Rock & Roll? footage from launch party
- Who Shot Rock and Roll MSNBC interview w/ Gail Buckland, November 10, 2009.
- Who Shot Rock & Roll at the Birmingham Museum of Art
- Who Shot Rock & Roll at the Akron Art Museum
- Who Rock and Roll at the Worcester Art Museum
- Who Shot Rock & Roll at the Columbia Museum of Art
- Who Shot Rock & Roll at the Tucson Museum of Art
- gailbuckland.com