Share your thoughts, photographs and videos of places you think should be a part of the LISTEN Project. Using the music venue inspired exhibition, STATIC NOISE: The Photographs of Rhona Bitner, as inspiration, the University Art Museum, CSULB invites you put the coolest spots in music history on the map. From holes in the wall to coliseums, all have a place in the story. Join the conversation by submitting content!
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
We’re tracking the #CSULB tags today! This lucky lady is taking sculpture at CSULB. Cool shot.
So fun seeing everybody’s bust! 😁
Eat up those behind the scenes gallery shots. Did you know this awesome and super effective sound insulation is made out of denim? I know, shocking.
In the second day of de-installation, we say goodbye to STATIC NOISE: The Photography of Rhona Bitner, Metal Machine Trio: The Creation of the Universe, and SPLIT MOMENT. Soon we will welcome new student artwork into the galleries in INSIGHTS: The Annual Student Exhibition, but for now, I want to take some time to pay homage to the exhibitions that have just closed.
Rolling Stone Spain was lovely enough to feature Rhona Bitner’s work in a great article called La memoria de Rock by Beatriz G. Aranda. With its flowery prose and romantic turns of phrase, we read this piece as more of a poem than anything else. As we watch wonderful artworks leave the galleries, the ephemeral opening to the article is a nice ending note to go out on.
La memoria de Rock (excerpt)
Making music or enjoying it is an activity that humanizes the space.
Titled LISTEN, the New York photographer Rhona Bitner takes us on a journey
To some of the American temples of live music, lucid even in silence
The challenge?
Immortalize the memory of noise.
In Aranda’s words, Bitner “guard[s] a place where something special happened.” In our opinion she does more than that - she upholds empty performance spaces as catalysts for sound art in our imaginations. She wants something special to happen TO US when we look into those vast stages.
Moving forward, we have a lot more special things in the works. Please stay tuned for the University Art Museum at Cal State Long Beach to transition the LISTEN Project into a full fledged museum blog. We hope to join the ranks of fantastic Museums on Tumblr, as highlighted by @MuseumNerd and Tumblr’s own list of Featured Museums very soon.
Don’t leave the party yet, there’s more to come - features on the award recipients for INSIGHTS, community outreach field trips, and even more on the way. If you feel so inclined, you are always welcome to submit content and bounce ideas around!
Like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter to stay in the loop.
See you next post,
<3 Amanda
Amoeblog (Amoeba Music) review of STATIC NOISE
Eric Brightwell of the Amoeblog (AKA Amoeba Music’s Blog) had some very kind words to say about Rhona Bitner’s photographs on view now at the University Art Museum, CSU Long Beach. Thanks, Eric!
“Rhona Bitner’s STATIC NOISE at UAM CSULB
BROKEN SPOKE, Austin, TX 2010 Color coupler print 20 x 20” © Rhona Bitner
Art and rock fans should check out STATIC NOISE: The Photographs of Rhona Bitner showing until April 15, 2012 at University Art Museum Cal State University Long Beach (UAM CSULB) — concurrently with Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Trio: The Creation of the Universe and Split Moment. All are reflections of museum director Christopher Scoates’s particular interest the intersection of art and music-related pop culture (as previously evinced by 2009’s Brian Eno exhibition, 77 Million Paintings).
New York-based photographer Rhona Bitner previously spent years with a circus and with stage lighting and her earlier photography and surroundings evince a taste for colorful performers and dark, warm shadows. The jump from garish clowns to raffish rock musicians probably wouldn’t have been much of a leap but the subjects of Bitner’s latest are America’s iconic rock music venues and recording spaces themselves, not the musicians and engineers who made and make the music happen.
THE MASQUE, Los Angeles, CA 2009 Color coupler print 40 x 40” © Rhona Bitner
The impetus for Bitner’s project was the then-imminent closure of CBGB in 2006. As with all the photos that followed (except when additional light was necessary to illuminate otherwise pitch blackness), she photographed it au naturel, without additional arrangement or human figures adorning the stage. An interesting choice because is an empty venue, especially bathed in sunlight, really its most natural state? It’s certainly not the version most of us see unless we work at a club or return as soon as we get off work because in our state the previous night we left our credit card there (I’ve heard of that happening to people). Fast forward to the present and Bitner’s now criss-crossed the US, photographing over 200 other settings, which she reckons is about 2/3rds of her wish list. Static Noise is a well-chosen selection of 28 of the entire, still-growing Listen series.
Bitner, like the filmmakers of the Cinéma Direct movement of the 1950s onward, is apparently keen not imprint too much of herself into the art, remaining as strictly observational as possible and the same arguments about the pursuit of objectivity can be made. The photographs necessarily exist as reflections of both the subject and artist. For one thing, the point of view is generally that of the spectator looking at the performance space rather than from the stage, which distinguishes it from most music-related photography, which usually depicts a guitarist mugging mid-solo, a stylized poster or flyer, or the exterior of a venue with the marquee serving as an in-frame caption.
TUXEDO JUNCTION (the Nixon Building), Birmingham, AL 2010 Color coupler print 40 x 40” © Rhona Bitner
The subjects themselves — the venues — exhibit more variety than one might expect. While many are alluringly colorful, others are Anabaptist in their stark neutrality. There are baroque ballrooms and impressibly sparse dives. There are thoroughly-designed and still functioning studios as well as abandoned, empty rooms — casually decorated by nature and well on their way to returning to dust.
One of Bitner’s stated aims is to convey sound. For someone like me for whom the combination of the words “rock” and “show” is almost as distressing as “sports” and “bar” or “cole” and “slaw,” I was happy that many of the venues evoked nothing more than the buzz of a neon beer sign, the soft clicking of a failing fluorescent tube, maybe the crackle of an amp. Rather than a moldy, punk oldie unwelcomingly lodging itself in my defenseless noggin, I was struck by how these visual depictions meant to evoke sound equally evoke smell - the familiar and almost universal mix of mildew and dank peculiar to crumbling ruins — or the putrid stench of spilt beer, and acrid, bleached bathroom tiles combined with an unfortunate carpet permanently imbued with stale cigarette smoke.
RANDY’S RODEO, San Antonio, TX 2009 Color coupler print 40 x 40” © Rhona Bitner
And that’s one of the interesting things for me; these venues mean different things to different people at different times. The CBGB space opened in 1878 as the Palace Bar and is now an intimidatingly posh John Varvatos menswear store. In the scope of time, if not most people’s view of historical significance, there was only a brief flash when it hosted acts like The Fast, Magic Tramps, Suicide, and Wayne County.
Even more ephemeral is the San Antonio’s Randy’s Rodeo’s brushwith rock significance. The Sex Pistols played there but one time in 1978 on their only tour of the US. Sure, Squeeze, The Ramones, and U2 all played there at least once too but presumably almost no one associates them with the venue. It began life as a bowling alley (Bandera Bowl). Later, soul singer OB McClinton recorded a live album, Live at Randy’s Rodeo, there. Later still it served as a Tejano club that hosted then-rising star, Selena. So whether looking at the picture evokes any of them, The Country Gentlemen, Coal Chamber, or anyone else that’s graced there stage, is in the mind and ear of the beholder.
NEW ROXY THEATER, Clarksdale, MS 2008 Color coupler print 20 x 20” © Rhona Bitner
Finally, although Bitner said that evoking nostalgia isn’t her aim, I for one couldn’t help but feel nostalgic, even elegiac, looking at her photos — even though its a nostalgia for places I’ve never been, and mostly in an era in which I didn’t exist. I’m prone toward that sort of feeling - the smell of a crayon can send me back to elementary school. Rock, in 2012, is also nostalgic for me. From its birth in the 1950s with artists like Little Richard and Chuck Berry, to its final stabs at originality and growth a few decades later, today its dwindling numbers of practitioners, even when undeniably talented, content themselves with either slavish retro recreations or at best, peddle an interesting pastiche. To me, rock is no more alive or evolving than ragtime or dixieland are — and these beautiful images are the golden amber in which it’s embedded.
You have until April 15th to check it out for yourself.”
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This is a transcription of KUSC’s Spotlight on the Arts, from February 20, 2012. In case you missed the original airing, you can always take a LISTEN on the KUSC podcast (episode archive) page.
“If Walls Could Talk. I’m Brian Lauritzen
Photographer Rhona Bitner pays homage to iconic music venues in the exhibit, STATIC NOISE, now on view at the Cal State Long beach University Art Museum. Twenty-eight vibrant photos show the spaces in a variety of states, like Detroit’s now deteriorating Grande Ballroom, once home to big band music, later an influential punk rock club. Bitner says she relies only on natural lighting when she shoots:
The photographs in a way are the artifacts. I think the real work is my going. It’s the physical act of standing there, and the photographs are what I take away. The venues that are crumbling, that’s the way they are—it’s about what I see that day when I’m there.
STATIC NOISE: The Photographs of Rhona Bitner are on display at the Cal State Long Beach University Art Museum through April 15th. For information visit, csulb.edu.”
For spotlight on the arts, I’m Brian Lauritzen.”
In reading Rhona’s words, it’s clear that her relationship with the spaces she photographs is a personal one, and that she would want visitors to develop a similar bond with the as-is architecture she carefully captures in her work.
For more from Mr. Lauritsen, follow Brian on Twitter @BrianKUSC, or check out the KUSC Blog for behind the scenes looks at the Los Angeles Philharmonic and much more artsy stuff!
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In our last post, we got into the history of the Grande Ballroom, in Detroit. Today, we’re focusing on Kick up the Jams by MC. For Rhona, it’s not about the people in the space, it’s about the space itself. We love these photos of MC5 performing at the Grande Ballroom because they might provide a visual counterpart to the sound someone might imagine when they look at Rhona’s color coupler print, Grande Ballroom, Detroit, MI.
In the recent article “Photo exhibit an homage to legendary music venues” by Sam Gnerre, Rhona gives some great quotes that clarify how she views the spaces she photographs as imbued with sound. Here’s a short excerpt from the article that frames Bitner’s experience photographing the Grande:
“‘I’m photographing sound,’ she says, ‘and listening to the space, to what came before there.’
She visited Detroit’s Grande Ballroom on an overcast day in 2008 and found ground zero of the incendiary Detroit rock scene that spawned the MC5, Iggy and the Stooges and Ted Nugent to be in decrepit shape.
‘The sun came out for five minutes while I was there, and I was able to capture the shot,’ she says.
Attempts to preserve and restore the Grande, now owned by a church, have so far been unsuccessful.
[…] ‘I’m not nostalgic,” Bitner says. “I’m not wishing for a better time. I’m just trying to hear the sounds of the rooms as I find them.’”
We think the second verse and second chorus of the song speak to Rhona Bitner’s treatment of her photographs as sound pieces. See below for bolded and italicized lyrics that we think Rhona would be really into.
Yes I’m starting to sweat
You know my shirt’s all wet
What a feeling
In the sounds that abounds
And resounds and rebounds off the ceiling
You gotta have it baby
You can’t do without
When you get that feeling
You gotta sock ‘em out
put that mic in my hand
And let me kick out the jam
Yes kick out the jams
I want to kick ‘em out
Want more? Read up on the awesome history of MC5, or cruise over to founding band member Jarrod Dicker’s blog—Machine Gun Thompson—where you can find stories about their performances at the Grande and totally psychedelic concert posters.
Anyone have an experience they’d like to share about the Grande Ballroom? Let us know!
Grande Ballroom, Detroit, MI
Originally a dance hall, the Grande Ballroom was built in 1928. Inspired by the Fillmore in San Francisco, Russ Gibb acquired it in 1966 with the intention to bring psychedelic music to Michigan. Located on 8952 Grand River Avenue in Detroit, Michigan, the Grande became the epicenter of motor city rock. MC5 and the The Stooges were the house bands. Janis Joplin, Jeff Beck, Cream, the Who, Jefferson Airplane, Led Zeppelin, Steppenwolf, Joe Cocker, Procol Harem, and even John Lee Hooker and Bo Diddley played there. The Who’s first U.S. performance of TOMMY took place at the Grande in their 1969 tour. The Grande Ballroom closed in 1972 and the building since has fallen into disrepair. Sad!
In our opinion, there’s one need to know fun fact—it’s the home of Kick of the Jams, like, the epitome of 1960s Detroit rock anthems. So much classic American music fit in one place is pretty baffling, and there’s more to come, folks. Thanks for sticking with the Listen Project. The Grande photo shown here is one of the larger 40” x 40” prints in Rhona Bitner’s STATIC NOISE exhibition at the UAM in Long Beach, CA. It and 27 other rockin’ pictures are on view until April 15th, 2012.
We invite you, and you’re specialness, to tack your own epic music venue story to this storyboard. Go ahead, we dare you to join this cool kids’ club.
Have you heard that Ke$ha was at our opening reception for the LISTEN project exhibition, STATIC NOISE: The Photography of Rhona Bitner? Well she was!
from left: Amanda Fruta (UAM Public Relations), Ke$ha’s friend, Ke$ha, and UAM Office Manager John Ciulik.
For all the photos from the opening reception, please check out the UAM Facebook page or Flickr.
Last Friday, the the University Art Museum hosted the opening reception of STATIC NOISE: The Photography of Rhona Bitner. There were over 500 people there, and it was a party dotted with celebrities. We’re not the name dropping type, but Lou Reed was there, as well as KeSha and Bob Ezrin. Consider this photo post an exploration of the Gordon F. Hampton Gallery, our central display space in the museum.
Editorial Note: Thoughtful comments from attendees proved that Rhona’s intent to activate viewers’ imaginations with intriguing empty performance spaces, brimming with atmosphere has succeeded. People told me they enjoyed imagining the scenes of band members that once populated the stages. - Amanda
What concert venues have made an impact on your imagination? Join the Listen Project when you submit your own content.
Last Thursday, Rhona Bitner gave a free lecture to CSULB photography students on her work and her photography practice. We hope the students in Intermediate Photography and Color Photography learned some tips of the trade, and we thank Prof. Rebecca Sittler-Schrock and in the CSULB Art Dept. (College of the Arts) for encouraging students to learn. Thanks to everyone who came out!
Exclusive behind the scenes look at the installation of STATIC NOISE: The Photographs of Rhona Bitner
UAM Chief Preparator Pet Sourinthone works with interns Miki and Remo to hang Rhona Bitner’s grid installation. Nice shots, Pet! (Craving more image info? Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post on the legacy of sites pictured in this installation…)
What studios and stages have made the biggest impact in your life? Tell us in the comments section, or join the movement and submit your own photo to the LISTEN Project.
