JOHN GOSSAGE
A few years with a telecaster
August 22 – October 3, 2009
RECEPTION & BOOK LAUNCH with the Artist
SATURDAY, August 22, 6:00 – 8:00pm
Harper’s Books is pleased to announce an exhibition of 1960s rock and roll images by
renowned photographer John Gossage. A limited edition artist’s book entitled A Few Years
With a Telecaster and designed by Gossage has been published in conjunction with the
exhibition. The photographer will be in attendance for the show’s opening, on Saturday,
August 22, from 6:00 – 8:00 pm.
John Gossage is widely regarded as one of the most influential photographers and bookmakers
working today, but back in the sixties he was torn between the life of a rock and roll
musician and the life of a photographer. Roy Buchanan and Danny Gatton taught him to play a
Telecaster, and a teenage Gossage formed a band and played gigs at bars and clubs along the
East Coast. At the same time he was busy honing his skills as a photographer, and in 1974 he
had his first exhibition at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York, effectively abandoning a career
in music to focus entirely on photography.
Luckily, there was a period of time in which Goassage’s dual pursuits coincided. Among other
musicians, he photographed Cream during the last week of their American life as a group, Jeff
Beck on fire at the Fillmore, B.B. King at the top of his game, and Jimi Hendrix one memorable
day and night in D.C. in 1968. These photographs have remained in Gossage’s archive until
now, having never been exhibited in a show or published in book form. Gossage’s images of
Hendrix, seen by only a few people in forty years, are poised to become instant icons.
Gossage’s rock and roll photographs bear little stylistic similarity to his later work. Perhaps
best known for his 1985 Aperture book The Pond, included by Martin Parr and Gerry Badger in
their landmark reference The Photobook: A History, Gossage has always eschewed
commercialism in favor of a more cerebral aesthetic. In A Few Years With a Telecaster ,
Gossage’s images explode across the page in a kinetic blur that is both a perfect
accompaniment to the music as well as to the prevailing photographic tendencies of the time:
from Warhol to the blurry images of Daido Moriyama and the Provoke school.
Since 1990, John Gossage has published 17 books and portfolios in a variety of formats and
with several publishers, including Nazraeli Press, Loosestrife Editions, and Steidl. Along with
Martin Parr, he is at the vanguard of a movement amongst photographers to reassert the
significance of the book as a vehicle of expression equal to photographic prints themselves.
With the publication of A Few Years With a Telecaster and the concurrent exhibition at
Harper’s Books, Gossage has brought to the page and the wall not only a unique slice of
American life in the sixties, but also a window into the private life and aspirations of one of our
most important photographers.
For further information, please contact Harper Levine or Kirsten Iverson at 631-324-1131, or mail@harpersbooks.com.
Hours: Wednesday – Saturday, 10:00-5:00, Sunday 11:00-4:00, or by appointment.
Harper’s Books is located at 66 Newtown Lane, second floor.
