Bobby Grossman’s Big Bang

Apr 17

Downtown rock ‘n’ roll photographer Bobby Grossman’s new show “Low Fidelity”, which opened April 16 at Howl! Arts/Howl! Archive (HA/HA) on the Bowery, takes viewers back in time to lower Manhattan’s big bang, a period in the late 70s when art and music emerged unstoppable in a paradigm-shifting explosion of joy and furor.

Low Fidelity features a range of brilliant portraits of the scene’s most important disruptors: Debbie Harry, Jean-Michel Basquiat, the Ramones, Patti Smith, Fab Five Freddy, Richard Hell, Andy Warhol, William S. Burroughs, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Lou Reed, Talking Heads to name a few.

There’s a lot to see here and the opening on April 16 drew a diverse crowd of downtown scenesters young and not so. Many, you got the feeling, were present when the explosion happened.

Harry with Burroughs, Warhol with Burroughs, Bowie with Iggy, Sid Vicious and Johnny Thunders - - the host of beautiful black and white images revealed how diverse that first big East Village rock music explosion actually was and what varied influences were at play.

There are shots that seemed to reveal a rich, as yet untapped, potential like the stoic, focused David Byrne, or shot of Basquiat at the corner of Mulbery & Bleeker, or Patti Smith at St. Marks Church-in-the-Bowery.

Others show the lighter side of a scene that was at once blue-steel-serious and frivolous, disposable fun: Joey and Dee Dee Ramone sharing a laugh, Bowie and Iggy mugging for the camera, Johnny Rotten and Danielle Booth in front of CBGs, Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson at the B-52’s debut at CBGBs. And of course there are the corn flakes portraits.

The show runs through May 29 at HA/HA, 250 Bowery, Howl! Happenings’ beautiful new second story space, which is itself worth the visit, with huge windows looking down on the Bowery and its spacious back patio area.