Filter’s Culture Collide Festival is taking over Los Angeles this weekend and bringing bands from over 30 countries to perform in historic venues such as The Echo, Echoplex, 826 LA, The Church, Taix, Co-op, Origami, and ReForm Academy. The four-day festival kicked off on Wednesday night with a launch party that featured an array of DJs, dance competitions, and a gallery of music-oriented photography titled Composition: Visual Notes on Music.
The exhibit is part of a pop up photo showcase, which pays tribute to the international cultures of the multitude of bands performing at the festival. Located inside The ReForm Academy, Composition: Visual Notes on Music contains around 40 photographs taken by emerging and world-renowned music photographers, including the Snorri Brothers, MOBY, B+ and Lauren Dukoff.
Also includes in the gallery are works by Dojillo and Walt, known for their Fat Beat Records images shot in Los Angeles and at Coachella. Catherine McGann, a 15-year photographer of New York’s Village Voice, contributed a line of photographs to the gallery that reveal the “other sides” of iconic music makers, including a black and white photograph of a four year old Bruno Mars as an Elvis impersonator, which was snapped in Memphis in 1990. There are candid shots of Bob Marley taken in a hallway in San Diego and a touching tribute to Amy Winehouse spoken through photographs taken by Jennifer Rocholl.
The gallery opening brought in herds of music fans, anxious to take a peak at some classic photographs of their favorite artists including, Bob Dylan, Lenny Kravitz, Brandon Boyd of Incubus, Beck, Arcade Fire, The Rolling Stones, Carlos Santana, Boy George, Marilyn Manson, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and more.
The exhibit is curated by the photography oriented nonprofit, The Lucie Foundation and will be on display throughout the duration of the Culture Collide Festival, which ends on October 9th. Lucie Foundation Program Director Jade Tran says the focus of the exhibit is to embody all types of music and appeal to a multi-generational crowd. “It really embodies the essence of music and what it means to look at music photography. It represents lots of genres of music, the kinds of cultures and subcultures that arise from music, and what that means to people.“
Composition: Visual Notes on Music
October 6-9
The ReForm Academy
1815 W. Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90026
Words by Nicole Pajer. Photos by Catie Laffoon.
