Charles Peterson’s Nirvana – Photography & Performance at Tacoma Art Museum

In collaboration with Seattle based Minor Matters Books and curated by Michelle Dunn Marsh comes a selection of gelatin silver and pigment prints by photographer Charles Peterson, on view at the Tacoma Art Museum until May 25, 2025.

Born in 1964 Peterson watched his uncle develop film in his grandparent’s basement, sparking an early fascination with photography. He went on to contribute photos to his high school yearbook and newspaper, and later study photography in college.

Peterson became the unofficial photographer for SubPop Records and was embedded in the Seattle music scene. His closeness to the scene is evident in many of the photographs, revealing an intimacy in his capture of emotion and expression. His work can be found in the following books: Screaming Life – 1996, Pearl Jam: Place Date – 1998; Touch me I’m sick – 2003; Charles Peterson’s Nirvana – 2024.

As you enter the exhibit there is a warning to not take photos or video. You’ll find inside an installation recreating Peterson’s photo lab to your left complete with inspiring rock and punk photos on the wall. Accompanying this experience is a mixed tape of Nirvana music, including many noisy experimental b-sides which can be heard broadcast across the exhibit.

A stage diver captured by Charles Peterson at a Nirvana show at the University of Washington in 1990. (Photo courtesy of Charles Peterson)

It’s worth reflecting on his work by way of previous punk photographers like the Bay Area’s Murray Bowles who photographed punk bands Operation Ivy, Green Day, Crimpshrine, Dead Kennedys and others at places like the all ages club the Gilman Street Project.

A show at the On Broadway, San Francisco, 1983. (Murray Bowles)

Like Peterson with the Seattle music scene, Murray Bowles was deeply embedded in the Bay Area punk scene for decades. He was a deep fan of many bands and knew many closely. His technique was one of a documentarian, holding his camera above a mosh pit, without looking through the view finder. There was element of chance, of capturing a chaotic moment. Bowles wasn’t just taking shots of bands, but the whole crowd. Peterson also wanted to photograph the audience, “I didn’t want to just get a head shot of the lead singer. I wanted to get the experience, make you actually feel like you’re there.”

These techniques are similar to that of street photographer Garry Winogrand who would walk down the street holding his camera ajar, taking random, uncomposed shots of humanity. He would take hundreds of photos at a time, and later identifying which ones he wanted.

Los Angeles, California, 1969 © Garry Winogrand. Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

Winogrand was influenced by earlier photographers like Walker Evans who captured depression-era America, often called the father of documentary photography.

A Miner’s Home, vicinity Morgantown, West Virginia. 1935

Winogrand was also inspired by Robert Frank who captured post-war America with an intense, expressive, penetrative style.

“Trolley — New Orleans,” 1955.Credit…Robert Frank, via Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

In contrast, the Bay Area’s Murray Bowles chose not to dwell on deeper, darker moments of the punk scene, although he could well have. Bowles work was full of movement, anarchic but upbeat. Bowles was a computer programmer with a deep love of the Bay Area punk scene. While not being especially introspective, his work was embraced as exemplifying the ‘freedom and joy’ of the punk scene.

A stagediver at a GBH show in the early 1980s, from ‘If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, Why am I in the Pit?’. (Murray Bowles)

Peterson was undoubtedly inspired by earlier punk photographers like Bowles whose photos often made their way to album covers, press releases, and Maximum Rock and Roll issues back in the 80s. But in contrast, Charles Peterson was able to combine this energetic, spontaneous quality with artistic training and a level of intimacy built up from working closely with the band over the years. Peterson was able to go deeper, especially with bands like Nirvana, making his work more emotionally poignant.

Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain at Rebar in Seattle in a 1991 photograph by Charles Peterson. 
Kurt Cobain Reading Festival 08 30 1992 Photo by Charles Peterson

Peterson’s art school training allowed him to meet the emerging music moment of Grunge with unique photographic techniques, like using a handheld flash and long exposures to show trails, communicating a new degree of intensity and dynamism. These visual approaches inspired a whole new generation of rock photographers in the 90’s.

Krist Novoselic and Kurt Cobain in Seattle on September 16, 1991. Photo: Charles Peterson

Curator Michelle Dunn Marsh sets up the multimedia selection of prints, photos, and photo lab installation in dialogue with photos, sculptures, and videos by 6 other artists including Sylvia Plachy, Nicholas Galanin, Jeffrey Michell, and Peterson’s professor Paul Berger. She tracks his work amid a soundscape of textured Nirvana noise and examples of other photographers to build a narrative journey.

No photos were allowed – you will have to visit to experience her curation first hand!

Visit the Tacoma Art Museum on Wednesdays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursdays 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. (free admission 5-8 p.m.); Fridays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturdays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Sundays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (closed Mondays and Tuesdays). Admission is $18 adults, $15 seniors (65+), $15 military (active duty or retired with ID), $10 youth 6-18, and free for TAM members. For more information, call (253) 272-4258 or visit www.tacomaartmuseum.org

Austin’s Conspirare Symphonic Choir & Symphony perform French program

Come this weekend to listen to the heavenly voices of Austin’s Conspirare Symphonic Choir and Austin’s Symphony put on a French program.

THE FRENCH CONNECTION. Presenting Francis Poulenc’s Gloria and Maurice Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé. With soprano Mela Dailey

  • FRI, 11.20.15 (8pm) Dell Hall, Long Center, Austin, TX
  • SAT, 11.21.15 (8pm) Dell Hall, Long Center, Austin, TX

Tickets are available through the Austin Symphony.

Broken Spoke documentary – 2 more days on Kickstarter!

The Broken Spoke is one of the few places left where you can sit and enjoy a country fried steak, beer or whiskey, hear live country music and dance the two-step.  Last year they celebrated their 50th anniversary.  Back then they were surrounded by countryside, there are tales of neighbors riding horses down Lamar.   Nowadays they are flanked by towering condos.  Help Blue Yonder Films complete their documentary so that the world can learn the rich history of the Broken Spoke.

When you enter the Broken Spoke it’s like walking into a time-capsule from Texas in the early 60’s.   In one of the rooms they have their own museum of Austin Country music history with photos and artifacts but the entire restaurant itself has changed very little in that long time.  Owners James and Annetta White are still a staple in this legendary place where Willie Nelson, Dale Watson, Ray Benson and Billy Willis all played.

Follow their progress on:

Other media attention on the Broken Spoke:

 

 

What’s in Dave Gahan, New Order & Gary Numan’s bag?

One of the things I miss most about living in Berkeley is going to record stores with my dad…going to Amoeba Music, or Tower Classics back in the day.  Having him teach me about Haydn
or Moondog, telling me his stories of having met Sonny Rollins or Miles Davis decades ago.

These stories and introductions to music helped to shape my tastes, which is why I am delighted with Amoeba Music’s video series ‘What’s in my bag?’ In the absence of programs like old MTV (120 minutes more appropriately), people turn to blogs like Pitchfork…but Amoeba is doing something rare and sorely needed by giving these artists video air-time to share the seminal albums that shaped them as well as the newer works they are impressed by.

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