Bob Dylan: Photographs by Daniel Kramer will get its Los Angeles premiere at the GRAMMY Museum in Downtown L.A. on Monday, Feb. 29, 2016. The popular traveling photo exhibit documents the metamorphosis of Bob Dylan from folk musician to rock & roll icon through more than 50 photographs taken by New York-based photographer and film director Daniel Kramer for a year and a day during 1964 and 1965.
On display on the museum's second floor through May 15, 2016, Bob Dylan: Photographs by Daniel Kramer offers viewers a striking, intimate account of the folk singer's transition into a rock superstar. This photographic "backstage view" of the singer/songwriter showcases key moments in Dylan's musical career during one of the most dynamic periods of American history.
Included are the recording sessions for Bringing It All Back Home, the now famous going-electric concert at Forest Hills Stadium, and private moments of the singer/songwriter who is, for many, the poet laureate of their time. These seminal pictures of Bob Dylan not only revealed the rising young star to international audiences, they set a standard by which all other rock portraits would be judged.
"The unique photographs Daniel Kramer captured while working with Bob Dylan during one of the most pivotal moments of his career sheds a never-before-seen light on one of America's greatest songwriters," said GRAMMY Museum Executive Director Bob Santelli. "We first opened this exhibit in Dylan's hometown of Hibbing, Minnesota. Now, we are thrilled to showcase the incredible work of Daniel Kramer at our home in Los Angeles just in time for Dylan's 75th birthday."
Daniel Kramer
Daniel Kramer is one of America's most noted music and portrait photographers. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y. and self-educated in photography, Kramer worked as an assistant to Philippe Halsman and Allan and Diane Arbus before gaining an international reputation of his own. His 1967 book, Bob Dylan, was critically acclaimed, as were the three Dylan album covers Kramer created — Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Biograph. Rolling Stone magazine called Kramer "the photographer most closely associated with Bob Dylan."
Kramer's photographs have been shown or collected by the national Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.; the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum; the International Center of Photography; the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Folkwang Museum in Germany; the George Eastman Museum; and many other prestigious institutions.
Bob Dylan
In the 1960s, Bob Dylan revolutionized popular music. Writing with the passion of a poet and the lyrical reach of a philosopher, Dylan, who was only in his 20s, changed the way we heard music and what we demanded from it. By blending elements of American folk music, blues and rock, Dylan stitched together these influences to become one of the greatest songwriters of the 20th century. He wrote songs of serious social, political and cultural consequence and in the process gave rock music the conscience it never had in its early years. Later in the decade he broke from folk music, found his own voice, and created a unique body of work full of musical masterpieces.
"Very often a photographer is an historian with a camera," said Kramer. "So, if I was successful, then, yes, there are a lot of pictures. But that's not the only thing you come away with. What you come away with is information, and something about Bob Dylan, and something about the time. You can see the change in the music, from the one microphone and acoustical guitar in a simple setting, to a vast stadium, hundreds of feet of cable, huge speakers that are bigger than a person. So I think all of that, if you get that out of it, then the pictures did their job."
Bob Dylan: Photographs by Daniel Kramer will be on display in the GRAMMY Museum's Special Exhibits Gallery through May 24, 2016. For more information, visit www.grammymuseum.org.
About The GRAMMY Museum
Paying tribute to music's rich cultural history, this one-of-a-kind, 21st-century museum explores and celebrates the enduring legacies of all forms of music, the creative process, the art and technology of the recording process, and the history of the premier recognition of excellence in recorded music — the GRAMMY® Award. The GRAMMY Museum features 30,000 square feet of interactive and multimedia exhibits located within L.A. LIVE, the Downtown Los Angeles sports, entertainment and residential district. Through thought-provoking and dynamic public and educational programs and exhibits, guests will experience music from a never-before-seen insider perspective that only the GRAMMY Museum can deliver.