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. [1] The exhibition toured from 2009-2013, 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), Annenberg Space for Photography (Los Angeles, California) [2] and Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki (Auckland, New Zealand).
The exhibit was a collaboration between Gail Buckland and the Brooklyn Museum, which began after the museum learned that Buckland 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." [3]
The exhibition is in six sections: behind the scenes; career beginnings; live performances; crowds and fans; portraits; images and album covers. [4] The exhibit covers over 50 years of rock-and-roll history and encompasses 175 works from more than 100 photographers. [5]
Blondie played the opening party on October 29, 2009. Debbie Harry changed her hair color to brunette for the occasion.[ citation needed ]
The Los Angeles exhibit featured an original documentary entitled Who Shot Rock & Roll: The Film , which was commissioned by the Annenberg Foundation, [6] directed by Steven Kochones and produced by Arclight Productions. [7] [8] Filmed and projected in 4K resolution, the film presents more than 600 photographs, interviews and behind-the-scenes footage.
“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.” [9]
Images from more than 100 photographers are exhibited including:
Edward Jean Steichen was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter, and curator.
Timothy Greenfield-Sanders is an American documentary filmmaker and portrait photographer based in New York City. The majority of his work is shot in large format.
Charles Sheeler was an American painter and commercial photographer. He is recognized as one of the founders of American modernism, developing a "quasi-photographic" style of painting known as Precisionism and becoming one of the master photographers of the 20th century.
Guy Bourdin, was a French artist and fashion photographer known for his provocative images. From 1955, Bourdin worked mostly with Vogue as well as other publications including Harper's Bazaar. He shot ad campaigns for Chanel, Charles Jourdan, Pentax and Bloomingdale's.
Jill Furmanovsky is a British photographer who has specialised in documenting rock musicians.
Clemens Kalischer was an American photojournalist and art photographer. He was born in Germany and immigrated to the United States.
Max Vadukul is a British photographer who is based in New York City. He is noted for his art reportage photography, which he describes as “taking reality and making it into art.” He has a lifelong affinity with black and white photography, a foundation of much of his early work. From 1996 to 2000 Max was the staff photographer for The New Yorker, second after Richard Avedon and is the first Indian photographer to shoot covers for French and American Vogue.. Sting has described his photography as a sort of "On the move style". The National Geographic channel produced a feature documentary on Vadukul in 2000 about the improbable arc of his life after Africa; the documentary continues to air around South Asia today.
Bob Gruen is an American author and photographer known for his rock 'n' roll photographs. Gruen has also appeared in films.
Frank Stefanko is a fine art photographer with connections to New Jersey performers Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen. Stefanko's early photographs, taken in the 1960s through the 1980s, reveal the emerging careers of the two young artists. Frank retains an ongoing working relationship with both Springsteen and Smith. A limited edition book was released in November 2017, entitled Bruce Springsteen: Further Up the Road. The book chronicles the 40-year working relationship between Stefanko and Bruce Springsteen. It contains personal stories and hundreds of Frank's photos from the 1960s to 2017, many never before seen.
Nina Berman is an American documentary photographer. She has published three monographs, Purple Hearts – Back from Iraq (2004), Homeland (2008) and An autobiography of Miss Wish (2017). Berman's prints have been exhibited in museums worldwide, received grants and awards, and she is a member of the NOOR photo agency and an associate professor at Columbia University.
Daniel Beltrá is a Spanish photographer and artist who makes work about human impact on the environment.
Norman Seeff is a photographer and filmmaker. Since moving to the United States in 1969, his work has been focused on the exploration of human creativity and the inner dynamics of the creative process.
Arthur Leipzig was an American photographer who specialized in street photography and was known for his photographs of New York City.
Ed Gallucci is an American photographer currently living in Virginia.
Laura Levine is an American multi-disciplinary visual artist. She is best known for her portraits of artists from the punk, early hip-hop, New Wave, No Wave, and the early downtown New York City music scene. Levine's work includes iconic images of Björk, R.E.M., the Clash, Afrika Bambaataa, the Ramones, the Beastie Boys, Iggy Pop, and Madonna, among others.
Nick Elliott is an English rock art photographer best known for his black and white images of some of the world's well-known musicians. Described as "one of the world's leading rock and music photographers" his work has been likened to Bob Gruen, Mick Rock, Henry Diltz, Jenny Lens and Anton Corbijn and his images have been featured on album artwork and in the media.
Who Shot Rock & Roll: The Film is a documentary film directed by Steven Kochones, which depicts the impact of photography on rock and roll history and culture over six decades. The film had its premiere in Los Angeles on June 23, 2012 in conjunction with the Annenberg Space for Photography's "Who Shot Rock & Roll" exhibit, and later shown at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival.
Susana Raab is an American fine art and documentary photographer based in Washington, D.C. She was born in Lima, Peru.
Catherine Simon is an American portrait photographer and writer. She is known for her photographs of influential musicians, artists, and writers, including The Clash, Patti Smith, Madonna, Andy Warhol, and William S. Burroughs. One of her photographs of Bob Marley was used on the front cover of his 1978 album, Kaya.
David J. Zimmerman is an American photographer who works on long-term projects of social documentary and landscape photography. His works include landscape photographs in deserts of the American southwest, still life studies in communities of marginalized inhabitants in New Mexico, and portraits of Tibetan refugees living in India.