DENNIS HOPPER: The Lost Album

Opening reception: Tuesday, May 7th, from 6:00 to 8:00pm

May 7th- June 22nd, 2013

GAGOSIAN GALLERY
980 MADISON AVENUE
5TH FLOOR T. 212.744.2313
NEW YORK NY 10075 F. 212.772.7962
W W W . G A G O S I A N . C O M

This is a story of a man/child who chose to develop his five senses and live and experience rather than just read.

—Dennis Hopper

Gagosian Gallery is pleased to present photographs from The Lost Album of the late Dennis Hopper. This historically significant body of work from the 1960s has not been exhibited in the United States since 1970. Hopper established his reputation as a cult director with Easy Rider (1969), while maintaining his reputation as an edgy character actor with gritty performances in The American Friend (1977), Apocalypse Now (1979), Blue Velvet (1986), and Hoosiers (1986). Before his rise to Hollywood stardom, he captured the establishment-busting spirit of the 1960s in photographs that travel from Los Angeles to Harlem to Tijuana, and which portray iconic figures including Tina Turner, Andy Warhol, and Martin Luther King, Jr. The Lost Album in its entirety comprises over 400 black and white photographs taken between 1961—when his first wife Brooke Hayward gave him a Nikon camera for his birthday—and 1967. He would not make photographs again until the early 1980s. Exhibited in its entirety, The Lost Album reveals casual portraits of artistic luminaries (Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg), leading actors (Jane Fonda, Paul Newman, John Wayne), and mythic musicians (James Brown, The Byrds, Jefferson Airplane), as well as stirring images of the Civil Rights Movement (Martin Luther King, Jr.). There are also hippie gatherings, the Apollo 11 lunar landing, Mexican bullfights, and catchy advertisements for popular cars, soft drinks, and newspapers.