Artists salute rock and roll - touring exhibition 'It's Only Rock and Roll: Rock and Roll Currents in Contemporary Art' - Brief Article

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Dec, 1997

Currently touring the nation is the first major traveling exhibition to document the widespread influences of rock and roll culture on contemporary art. Beginning with references to Elvis Presley, the Everly Brothers, and Bill Haley by pop artists of the 1950s and 1960s, it reveals an ongoing interaction between popular music and visual art, culminating with tributes to the late Kurt Cobain of Nirvana.

The exhibition includes more than 100 pieces of contemporary art created in a diverse array of media, including painting, collage, photographs, sculpture, and multi-media assemblies. Drawn from institutions and private collections, it represents a 40-year retrospective on how rock and roll has become a social force in art. Featured are works by many of the most important artists of the last half of the 20th century, including Laurie Anderson, Robert Arneson, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Annie Liebovitz, Robert Mapplethorpe, Nam June Paik, Robert Rauschenberg, Red Grooms, William Wegman, and Andy Warhol.

Rock and roll portraiture gained momentum in the 1970s and 1980s, as Warhol produced paintings and prints of pop starts such as Mick Jagger and Aretha Franklin. Liebovitz's photographs for Rolling Stone, taken during the same period, are distinguished by the photographer's ability to create an expressive, even humorous environment for her subjects.

Since the mid 1980s, rock and roll culture has continued to provide visual artists with a seemingly endless stream of inspiration. For teh most part, such influences are manifested in four specific genres: celebrity portraiture, appropriation of song titles, depiction or use of materials and formats from rock and roll culture, and general iconographic references.

"It's Only Rock and Roll: Rock and Roll Currents in Contemporary Art" will be at the Lowe Art Museum, Coral Gables, Fla., from Dec. 11 to Feb. 8, 1998. It then will travel to the Milwaukee (Wis.) Art Museum (March 20-May 24, 1998) and Arkansas Art Center. Little Rock (July 1-Sept. 1, 1998).