Another works outing for the Xorg Collective last Friday, to The National Portrait Gallery to see the photographic exhibition Beatles to Bowie. Fascinating stuff, featuring some well known pictures of all your poptastic favourites from the Sixties as well as some forgotten gems. The exhibition focuses on British artistes from 1960 to 1969, so it starts off with Cliff and the Shadows, Johnny Kidd and Helen Shapiro and passes through The Beatles, The Stones, The Kinks and many more. It's interesting to note how, despite his continued commercial success, Cliff Richard vanishes from the exhibition after 1963 - no longer cool. Some of the photos can be seen on the website; Google the photographers for loads more examples. Gered Mankowitz, Robert Whitaker, Fiona Adams, Brian Duffy, Angus McBean, Robert Freeman, David Bailey.
There seems to be a convention for photos of pop stars to have studio shots with a plain background which is leftover from the previous era. But with the arrival of The Beatles, photographers became more innovative - I believe this is because people like The Beatles, The Stones, and Hendrix had an effect on the photographer and gave them a boost of creative inspiration. Another factor was that the photographers were (mostly) of the same generation as their subjects, identified with them, and were wanting to do something different as per the spirit of the times.
The exhibition also features some artefacts from the Sixties - LP covers, magazines, concert tickets and the like. Groovy.
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