3.2.2011

Image/Fame/Memory
Curtis Knapp, Gerard Malanga, Billy Name, Kate Simon
& Shepard Fairey in collaboration with Billy Name and Kate Simon
March 11- April 16
Opening Reception, Friday, March 11, 6-8PM

Irvine Contemporary is pleased to present Image/Fame/Memory, an exhibition of works by four major portrait and documentary photographers, Curtis Knapp, Gerard Malanga, Billy Name, and Kate Simon, who are known for the iconic power of their images in circulating fame and contributing to the cultural memory of the past four decades. Many of the photographs are being exhibited for the first time. Two of the photographers, Billy Name and Kate Simon, have also recently collaborated with Shepard Fairey in the creation of new images that extend the memory and symbolic power of the original photographs in a new medium and new cultural moment.

This exhibition brings together for the first time the photographs of Curtis Knapp, Gerard Malanga, Billy Name, and Kate Simon, who worked mainly in New York City from the mid-1960s to the present, and have produced important bodies of work centered on portraits and intimate images of well-known musicians, artists, writers, and actors. This exhibition will also be the first exhibition of Shepard Fairey's collaborative images with the source photographs by Billy Name and Kate Simon.

Fame, celebrity, and memory are inseparable from the photographic image as it circulates in all forms of media. As Madonna herself famously said in her 1991 movie, Truth or Dare, "what’s the point of doing anything off camera?" Most of the people represented in these images are known through many years of conventional celebrity photo genres--magazine spreads, staged promotional shots, and media coverage. The photographs in Image/Fame/Memory were selected to show photographers working in more personal, reflective, candid, and interpretive ways with their subjects, creating images that compel us to reconsider the people known only through multiple streams of photographic imagery.

About the Artists

Curtis Knapp, Madonna (1983), silver gelatin print. First magazine cover.		Curtis Knapp is an award-winning photographer who began his career in New York in the 1980s, including shooting for Andy Warhol's Interview Magazine. He has photographed some of the greatest artists, musicians, actors, writers, and celebrities of our day, including Madonna (first magazine cover), William S. Burroughs, Dennis Hopper, Andy Warhol, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Brian Eno, and many others. Recent exhibitions include, Celebrity Portraits from the Warhol Factory Years (Irvine Contemporary, 2006), which has since become part of a private collection exhibited at the Ludwig Museum in Germany and the Tel Aviv Museum in Israel. Read more...
Curtis Knapp, Roy Lichtenstein, silver gelatin print.
Gerard Malanga, Andy Warhol Photobooth, 1964. Lithograph edition.		Gerard Malanga, photographer, filmmaker, poet, and archivist, was Andy Warhol's first studio assistant and he worked closely with Warhol in the 1960, including the famous "Screen Tests" film series and co-founding Interview magazine. His photography has appeared in many exhibitions, including the Irvine Contemporary exhibition, Celebrity Portraits from the Warhol Factory Years (2006), and he has published twenty-three books. This exhibition includes Malanga's Thermofax Portfolio, a unique signed book edition and print series using the original Thermofax copier process for the photographs that Malanga sourced for Warhol's Death and Disaster series. Read more...
Gerard Malanga, from Thermofax Portfolio, edition of 100.
Billy Name, Andy Warhol in the Silver Factory (1963). Silver gelatin print.		Billy Name is known as Andy Warhol's main "resident photographer" from 1964-70, and is the creator of the look and design of Warhol's famous "Silver Factory." His work has appeared in numerous exhibitions, documentaries, and publications, including a Retrospective of his photography at the Institute of Contemporary Art, London, in 1997, and the the Irvine Contemporary exhibition, Celebrity Portraits from the Warhol Factory Years (2006). Shepard Fairey recently collaborated with Billy Name on the creation of a new image of Nico based on Name's iconic photograph shot in Warhol's Factory. Read more...
Billy Name, Bob Dylan Screen Test(1963). Silver gelatin print.
Kate Simon, Louise Bourgeois. Cibachrome print, 20 x 16 in.		Kate Simon is internationally known for her intimate portraits of many of the leading musicians, artists, and writers of our time. Simon attended the Corcoran College in Washington, DC, and then went to London to begin her career in photography where she became an insider in the rising punk scene during the 1970s, and photographed the members of The Clash and their first album cover. Since returning to the US and New York City in 1978, she has created a portfolio of iconic images of Bob Marley, Patti Smith, Robert Mapplethorpe, William S. Burroughs, Michael Jackson, Debbie Harry, Madonna, and Louise Bourgeois. Shepard Fairey has recently collaborated with Kate Simon on three screenprint and stenciled images based on her photographs of Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon of The Clash. Image/Fame/Memory presents many photographs by Simon exhibited for the first time. Read more...
Kate Simon, Michael Jackson (1979).

Shepard Fairey, Nico, screenprint, 2010. Collaborative image from a  photograph by Billy Name. Billy Name, Nico, 1964. Silver gelatin print.		Shepard Fairey is known internationally as a leader in street art and many forms of post-Pop composition, graphic design, and printmaking. His Retrospective, Supply and Demand: The Art of Shepard Fairey, traveled to US museums in 2009-2010, originating at the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art. He has created many collaborative works with photographers in making new images, including Glen Friedman, Billy Name, and Kate Simon. This is the first exhibition of Shepard Fairey's collaborative images with the source photographs by Billy Name and Kate Simon, and the first exhibition of his new Rebel Waltz composition with a collaborative image from a photograph of Paul Simonon of The Clash by Kate Simon. Read more...
		Shepard Fairey, Joe Strummer of The Clash, screenprint, 2010. Collaborative image from a photograph by Kate Simon.	Kate Simon, Joe Strummer of The Clash, Silver Gelatin Print.

IRVINE CONTEMPORARY
Martin Irvine, Proprietor & Director
Lauren Gentile, Director
1412 14th St., NW, Washington, DC 20005
www.irvinecontemporary.com
Phone: (202) 332-8767