Sotheby’s and Sid Vicious might seem the antithesis of each other, but the two are due to come together later this month in a selling exhibition of photographs and portraits of rock stars at the London auction house’s S2 gallery.
The Los Angeles street artist Shepard Fairey, who is currently facing trial for allegedly tagging buildings in Detroit, is creating six new paintings for the show, including one of the Sex Pistols bassist. Debbie Harry, David Bowie and Jimi Hendrix are among the other subjects; portraits are priced at $40,000 each. Fru Tholstrup, the director of S2 gallery, says Fairey’s arrest has not held up the production of his paintings.
The exhibition, Rock Style (22 September-30 October), has been organised by the New York dealer Jeffrey Deitch and the fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger, who have collaborated on shows and events before, including a Miley Cyrus performance during Art Basel Miami Beach last year.
The Sotheby’s exhibition will feature 52 photographs of rock stars from Elvis Presley to Mick Jagger and Madonna by some of the world’s top photographers in the field, including James Fortune, Mick Rock and Baron Wolman. The show reflects a time when musicians styled themselves, and were one of the main sources of inspiration for fashion designers. “Musicians were more influential in the world of fashion than fashion designers,” Hilfiger says. Prices range from between $1,000 and $15,000. “There’s something for everybody at those price points,” Tholstrup says.
In 1999, Hilfiger organised an exhibition, also titled Rock Style, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, featuring 40 rock artists who have influenced fashion. A number of photographs that were in the Met exhibition are due to go on display in the Sotheby’s show, which coincides with the tail end of London Fashion Week (18-22 September) as well as Frieze London (14-17 October).
The exhibition is due to open a week before Sotheby’s rock and pop sale on 29 September—its first in London for more than a decade.
