Twice as Nice, Ayia Napa, Cyprus, 2001, from the series UKG,
1999-2001, photo by Ewen Spencer. Courtesy of the artist
Photography and music have always had a complex relationship. In “We Want More” curator Diane Smyth was keen to start from the turn of the century, presenting images that examine the world of music photography in recent years. Set over two floors, the exhibition ranges from artfully staged album covers, magazine exclusives, new technologies to documentary style-footage; and we witness the focus shifting from the stars themselves to the effect of their music.
Gooi Rooi, 2012, photo by Roger Ballen. Courtesy of the artist
Jason Evans presents several enlarged contact sheets from his 2001-08 sessions with Radiohead. Like a bad stop motion they play out entire scenarios, we see faces morph, limbs fail, there’s an added life and so an added intimacy to the subject. Contact sheets give us what the finished product doesn’t – the unwanted shots, those images of the artist that are discarded, hidden away. When placed in contrast with the photoshopped serenity of Lady Gaga’s portraits shot by Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin, or Roger Ballen’s artfully composed monochrome scenarios for Die Antwoord, it’s a nice reminder that behind the masks there’s movement.
Lady Gaga / Dope – Artpop, 2013, photo by Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin. Courtesy of the artists
Of course in modern technology this movement itself is exploited, as with Ryan Enn Hughes’s gifs of Katy Perry (created from the music video of her song “Birthday” directed by Danny Lockwood and Marc Klasfeld) which are displayed on iPads. One of Smyth’s enduring concerns throughout the exhibitions seems to be this division between commissioned and spontaneous work. Many portraits on display show how musicians are able to control the presentation of their image: Ballen’s dystopian scenes of Die Antwoord with bodies stuck to graffitied walls and ducks occupying abandoned bathtubs are just as organised as the airbrushed cheekbones of Lady Gaga. Yet just as the amount of control over image-making in the music industry has increased, so too has the amount that is outside control. The work of David Cohen catches performers (including artists such as Chaka Khan, Erykah Badu and Jill Scott) just after their last song before they return to the stage for an encore. The stolen moment shows, as the photographer says, “the person not being an artist for 10 or 20 seconds”. Here, rather than photography creating an artist’s image it strips it back and reveals the reality of the person underneath the glitz.
Erykah Badu, Paradiso, from the
series We Want More, 2007-2009, photo by Daniel Cohen.
Courtesy of the artist
Pauli “The PSM” – Damon Albarn, Jamie XX
(New York, July ’14), photo by Deirdre O’Callaghan.
Courtesy of the artist
In Deirdre O’Callaghan’s series “The Drum Thing”, 2010-15, we are shown candid shots of those band members usually out of sight. “Lost in the music during practice sessions”, as the artist explains, drummers are caught immobilised up in the air, with a close up of the worn hands, peeling skin and beaten knuckles. One figure, “Pauli the PSM”, is frozen in time up in the air; he’s the drummer you won’t see, hidden at the back of the stage for Damon Albarn. O’Callaghan’s work looks intimately at these unseen but crucial members, using photography as a means to bring awareness to the underappreciated aspects of music-making, bringing the backstage to the foreground.
Text by Thea Hawlin
“We Want More” is on display at The Photographers’ Gallery, London until 20 September 2015
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