Culture Fiend

The exhibit opens with “people who bear direct witness to Kurt Cobain,” says Michael Darling, curator of contemporary art at SAM. Alice Wheeler. Kurt Cobain at MTV’s Live and Loud, Pier 63, Seattle WA, Dec. 13, 1993, 1993 printed 2010, color photograph.

Sound clips of Kurt grunting and groaning in concert provide the soundtrack for this room with iconic photos of him crashing into his drum kit. Charles Peterson, Nirvana, Rajis, Los Angeles 2/15/90, 1990 Inkjet print, 66 × 44 in.

In Alice Wheeler’s Tent City, she photographs a boy from the Midwest who moves to Seattle to embrace his grunge dream—bleached-blond hair and guitar included. Alice Wheeler, Tent City, Seattle, WA, April 1999, color photograph, 27 × 40.5 in.

Evan Holloway’s Left-handed Guitarist captures Kurt’s signature stance: slightly hunched over because of back and stomach problems, scraggly blond hair drooping in face, seeming to hide from his own fame. Evan Holloway, Left-Handed Guitarist, 1998, foam, paper, plastic, graphite.

Elizabeth Peyton, Zoe’s Kurt, 1995, oil on board.

In Slater Bradley’s Doppelganger Trilogy—which includes this still image and a video installation—the artist hired someone who resembled both him and Kurt Cobain to pose in a series exploring mimicry and the malleability of identity. Slater Bradley, Silver I Love You So Much It Makes Me Sick, 2008, silver marker on Chromogenic print.

German artist Friedrich Kunath borrows from the melancholy of Kurt’s notebooks and doodles in this wall-size sketch. Fans will recognize the unicorn on the top right as Kurt’s own. Friedrich Kunath, Untitled, 2010, mixed media on canvas.

By placing his sculpture of Kurt Cobain on the ground rather than on a pedestal, local artist Scott Fife gives a sense of the rocker’s ennui, says Darling. Scott Fife, Kurt Cobain, 2006, archival cardboard, glue, screws.

Beyond a black curtain is a series of pieces exploring the early demise of Kurt Cobain, including Jordan Kantor’s Greenhouse, which interprets photographs of a shadowy figure presumably standing over Kurt’s body on the day of his suicide. Jordan Kantor, Greenhouse, 2006, oil on canvas.

Budding actress Holly Solomon, one of Warhol’s Factory girls, “performs” for the photobooth camera in this 1966 strip. “I wanted to be Brigitte Bardot. I wanted to be Jeanne Monreau, Marilyn Monroe all packed into one,” she once revealed. Photobooth strip courtesy the Andy Warhol Foundation of the Visual Arts, New York.

If you came into the Factory between 1964 and 1966, you might sit for a four-minute screen test with Warhol, says Marisa Sanchez, assistant curator of modern and contemporary art at SAM. Twenty of nearly 450 Screen Tests—essentially, silent black-and-white video portraits of his friends and muses—are projected onto the walls of two separate gallery rooms.

When Edie Sedgwick arrived at the Factory in 1965, she became Warhol’s number one muse: “the woman he couldn’t be,” says Sanchez. Her image never made it onto a Warhol canvas, though—a comment on the type of “celebrity” he deemed worthy for his art. Screen test (16mm) courtesy the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, New York.

In the exhibit’s Polaroid Gallery is a series of self-portraits, including this “playful” one from 1977— Self-Portrait (Being Choked) —of Warhol simulating being strangled by an unknown aggressor. Courtesy the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh.

Warhol also played with ideas of femininity and identity by posing for a series of Polaroids called Self-Portrait in Drag, including this one from 1981. The person who actually took these photos is unknown. Courtesy the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh.

Warhol satisfied his appetite for immediacy (of process and delivery) with Polaroids. He captures his “superstars,” including Dennis Hopper (pictured, 1977), Edie Sedgwick, Lou Reed of the Velvet Underground, “Baby Jane” Holzer and Jack Smith, in screen tests and photos, stripped of any Hollywood gloss. Courtesy the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, New York.

At the end of the exhibit, you’re encouraged to pose in the photobooth and add your own “portrait” to the collage on the wall. The quote on the wall? “I don’t think art should be only for the select few, it should be for the mass of American people…” Andy Warhol