The exhibition From Her To Eternity: The Women Who Photograph Music created and curated by singer and actress Courtney Love will be until September 18th at Chicago’s outdoor gallery, Wabash Arts Corridor. Here is the text they gave us !
Courtney Love and Julie Panebianco, ARCny Creative Director and Philanthropist, have brought together the work of 46 world-renowned Music Women Photographers into one grand urban tapestry that highlights the so important role of Women in the music industry, both in front of and behind the camera. To name but a few examples of iconic wonderful photographs on view at the exhibition: Björk, Aretha Franklin, U2, Buddy Guy, PJ Harvey, Salt-n-Pepa, Jane’s Addiction, Kurt Cobain, Billie Eilish, Beck, Flea, Pussy Riot, Lenny Kravitz, Chance the Rapper, Blur, Michael Stipe, Ringo Starr, Anita Lane, Courtney Love, Nick Cave, Robert Smith, Celine Dion, Cardi B, Kiss, U2, Cocteau Twins…
The exhibition features an array of female artists linked by their passion, hard work and exemplary exquisiteness on their gaze and commitment with contemporary music and artists from every angle and moment when they were created: Linda McCartney, Laura Levine, Ellen von Unwerth, Katarina Benzova, Pooneh Ghana, Sheila Rock, Ebet Roberts, The Tyler Twins, Melissa Auf Der Maur, Ruth Baza, Christy Bush, Kate Simon, Pam Springsteen, Carinthia West, Les Guzman, Christina Birrer and many others.
Each artist gracefully embraced the topic which is part of their life in a way that elevates women and their legacy, empower them and all Women, hence this a tribute, and hence the title, FROM HER TO ETERNITY: THE WOMEN WHO PHOTOGRAPH MUSIC. “We named the project FromHerToEternity and dedicated it to the memory of Anita Lane, member of the Birthday Party and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Anita co-wrote the song ‘From Her to Eternity’ that the band used as a name for their first record. We got her family’s and Nick’s blessing to use this evocative title after she died on April 27, 2021 at the age of 61” says Courtney Love and Julie Panebianco.
Taken together, the work shines a light on female representation in contemporary music behind the lens and continues the conversation around how female artists choose to represent themselves.
“As a woman working in an industry of brilliant women, it is exciting to highlight their voices and welcome this exhibition as a big thank you to all these artists who shaped and continue giving shape the world of music with their lens and senses” says Carmen Espinilla, Founder of Carmen Espinilla PR, Press, Events & Sponsorship Studio.
FROM HER TO ETERNITY: THE WOMEN WHO PHOTOGRAPH MUSIC
By Ruth Baza
“Listen I know it must sound absurd
But I can hear the most melancholy sound I ever heard!Walk and cry, kneel and cry!
From her to eternity!
From her to eternity!”
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (co-written with Anita Lane)
Walking no crying on a photo-tapestry of women’s gazes in the beating heart of Chicago, city of heavy winds and whimsical tides on Lake Michigan. It’s not absurd. It´s a reality. A large urban canvas made of insights by indie, intellectual, reasonable but sensitive contemporary Women of Enlightenment linked by their passion and kinda unfaint hearted raison d`être which has driven them to freeze with their cameras for ever, music and its icons. Modern Renaissance artists, with and without blue stockings, whose works resemble intertwined journals pages in the shadows of the buildings that embraces the sky, at the foot of the incessant human traffic that fills the streets during summer. A kind of visual haut couture photo-textile designed by singer/actress Courtney Love and ARCny Creative Director and philanthropist, Julie Panebianco.
A quilted, vivid and passionate tour on color and black and white images. Fantasies, dreams, real life instants, improvisations, record covers, fashion poses, behind-the-scenes, candid shots, before and after the curtain falls, unique moments as melancholic as joyful through the history of contemporary music hunted in time and at the right time, by women behind the lens.
An elegant quilt made of echoes of rock, blues, punk, pop, hip hop, grunge, britpop, rap, heavy metal, folk, jazz, experimental music, soul, country, gospel, blues. An unprecedented, cutting-edge quilt sewn with love as a tribute to 46 of the world’s greatest music women photographers scented of trascendence and pure elegance.
Iconic, ironic, polyhedral, warm and vibrant musical melting pot, sensual, vindictive, humanistic, poetic quilt. Women´s photo-verses on a huge and diverse mural. Simply the perfect dress under the sun of the city that never sleeps.
Ruth Baza
Wabash Arts Corridor
635 S Wabash Ave,
Chicago, IL 60605
www.wabashartscorridor.org
