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New exhibiton from Corbijn
By Paul Taylor
BOB Marley leans against a wall seemingly waiting in vain for a lift. Kurt Cobain stares dumbly into the camera as he sits on a garden bench. Keith Moon leans against a tree, unaware that he will indeed die before he gets old.
The connection? All these dead rock stars are posing, implausibly, against the backdrop of a Dutch village on an island where nothing ever happens.
And all the images are, in fact, rock's best-known photographer Anton Corbijn in disguise.
It is more than just a mischievous piece of role-playing.
As Corbijn explains: "It is very much to do with me. It is the most personal work I have done".
For the autobiographical truth at the heart of the exhibition - titled a.somebody, strijen, holland - is that Corbijn's childhood was spent in that uneventful Dutch village Strijen, and it was the iconic images of the likes of John Lennon which gave him a sense of an exciting world beyond the island.
"I have a feeling that the A-list celebrity is so far away from people now.
"People try to get close to them by trying to be them, so you have karaoke bars, tribute bands and impersonators. I felt that I addressed that in these photographs," he says.
"As an idea, celebrity shooting is so cliched now. It is interesting to see what you can do with it. I have tried various ways to make it still interesting for me and for the public."
Corbijn was born in Strijen in 1955 and lived there until he was 11. It was the kind of place where the dentist was a ferry ride away and young Anton's hobbies included bird-watching.
He was the son of the local preacher, so death was part of daily life for the family - a fact reflected in Corbijn's decision to portray only dead rock stars in his exhibition.
The pictures are also being published in a book designed to resemble a Bible.
The Beatles
"Going back after 35 years, I realised that when I was a kid, all I wanted to do was get off this island, because I had the theory that the things I was starting to get interested in - say The Beatles - were all happening outside the island," he says.
"As a preacher in a small village, my father always had to be there when people were ill, and had to go to all the people dying. My mother also studied theology, so they are very into this idea that your life is for your life after death. This would always be discussed at the dinner table."
The second part of the exhibition at The Richard Goodall Gallery, Manchester, is a series of black and white studio photographs of Corbijn, still with the make-up and false noses used in the Strijen shots, but without the costumes, these starker images illustrating desperation for celebrity.
"There is no vanity there," says Corbijn.
All 21 of the colour pictures - the number ones in limited editions of ten - were bought even before the show opened for ?6,000 each by a businessman who is a customer of the gallery, which first staged an exhibition of Corbijn's work three years ago.
Corbijn has lived in London for the last 24 years, going round the world on assign-ments to photograph the big names of the rock and film worlds.
He could almost be described as the official photographer for U2, capturing a host of images, including that of the desert yucca which inspired the title of the Joshua Tree album.
The dark side of the exhibition is that three of the dead rock stars who died by suicide were known to Corbijn personally. Manchester band Joy Division was one of the reasons Corbijn came to England.
When singer Ian Curtis hanged himself in 1980, a Corbijn photograph of Curtis walking away from the camera was used all over the world.
Corbijn was an acquaintance of Nirvana's Kurt Cobain, and he had a long and close friendship with Herman Brood, the only Dutch rock star portrayed by him in the exhibition.
Brood, a legendary consumer of drink and drugs, was 55 when he jumped to his death from the roof of the Hilton Hotel, Amsterdam, in 2001.
"When I was doing the black and white pictures of Herman, I looked in the mirror and I actually looked very much like him, which was a very odd feeling," says Corbijn.
"This was a friend I had worked with since 1974. It was the longest relationship I had with anybody photographically."
Anton Corbijn's exhibition a.somebody, strijen, holland runs from Friday until May 31 at The Richard Goodall Gallery, 59 Thomas Street in Manchester's Northern Quarter. The gallery is open from Tuesday to Saturday 10am to 6pm.
29/04/2003
New exhibiton from Corbijn
By Paul Taylor
BOB Marley leans against a wall seemingly waiting in vain for a lift. Kurt Cobain stares dumbly into the camera as he sits on a garden bench. Keith Moon leans against a tree, unaware that he will indeed die before he gets old.
The connection? All these dead rock stars are posing, implausibly, against the backdrop of a Dutch village on an island where nothing ever happens.
And all the images are, in fact, rock's best-known photographer Anton Corbijn in disguise.
It is more than just a mischievous piece of role-playing.
As Corbijn explains: "It is very much to do with me. It is the most personal work I have done".
For the autobiographical truth at the heart of the exhibition - titled a.somebody, strijen, holland - is that Corbijn's childhood was spent in that uneventful Dutch village Strijen, and it was the iconic images of the likes of John Lennon which gave him a sense of an exciting world beyond the island.
"I have a feeling that the A-list celebrity is so far away from people now.
"People try to get close to them by trying to be them, so you have karaoke bars, tribute bands and impersonators. I felt that I addressed that in these photographs," he says.
"As an idea, celebrity shooting is so cliched now. It is interesting to see what you can do with it. I have tried various ways to make it still interesting for me and for the public."
Corbijn was born in Strijen in 1955 and lived there until he was 11. It was the kind of place where the dentist was a ferry ride away and young Anton's hobbies included bird-watching.
He was the son of the local preacher, so death was part of daily life for the family - a fact reflected in Corbijn's decision to portray only dead rock stars in his exhibition.
The pictures are also being published in a book designed to resemble a Bible.
The Beatles
"Going back after 35 years, I realised that when I was a kid, all I wanted to do was get off this island, because I had the theory that the things I was starting to get interested in - say The Beatles - were all happening outside the island," he says.
"As a preacher in a small village, my father always had to be there when people were ill, and had to go to all the people dying. My mother also studied theology, so they are very into this idea that your life is for your life after death. This would always be discussed at the dinner table."
The second part of the exhibition at The Richard Goodall Gallery, Manchester, is a series of black and white studio photographs of Corbijn, still with the make-up and false noses used in the Strijen shots, but without the costumes, these starker images illustrating desperation for celebrity.
"There is no vanity there," says Corbijn.
All 21 of the colour pictures - the number ones in limited editions of ten - were bought even before the show opened for ?6,000 each by a businessman who is a customer of the gallery, which first staged an exhibition of Corbijn's work three years ago.
Corbijn has lived in London for the last 24 years, going round the world on assign-ments to photograph the big names of the rock and film worlds.
He could almost be described as the official photographer for U2, capturing a host of images, including that of the desert yucca which inspired the title of the Joshua Tree album.
The dark side of the exhibition is that three of the dead rock stars who died by suicide were known to Corbijn personally. Manchester band Joy Division was one of the reasons Corbijn came to England.
When singer Ian Curtis hanged himself in 1980, a Corbijn photograph of Curtis walking away from the camera was used all over the world.
Corbijn was an acquaintance of Nirvana's Kurt Cobain, and he had a long and close friendship with Herman Brood, the only Dutch rock star portrayed by him in the exhibition.
Brood, a legendary consumer of drink and drugs, was 55 when he jumped to his death from the roof of the Hilton Hotel, Amsterdam, in 2001.
"When I was doing the black and white pictures of Herman, I looked in the mirror and I actually looked very much like him, which was a very odd feeling," says Corbijn.
"This was a friend I had worked with since 1974. It was the longest relationship I had with anybody photographically."
Anton Corbijn's exhibition a.somebody, strijen, holland runs from Friday until May 31 at The Richard Goodall Gallery, 59 Thomas Street in Manchester's Northern Quarter. The gallery is open from Tuesday to Saturday 10am to 6pm.
29/04/2003
