Rock and Roll: Lynn Goldsmith

Open through January 6, 2008

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is home to the worldwide debut of Rock and Roll: Lynn Goldsmith in the Ahmet M. Ertegun Main Exhibition Hall.

Lynn Goldsmith is an award-winning portrait photographer and music and video artist who has shot iconic portraits of many Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees including Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Patti Smith, Bruce Springsteen, Joey Ramone, Michael Jackson, Sid Vicious, Robert Plant, James Brown, Joe Strummer, Miles Davis and many more. Her searing work has appeared in numerous magazines and has made her one of the greatest rock and roll portrait photographers of all time.

Goldsmith brings her fierce intellect and an open heart to her work, engaging with her subjects’ celebrity with a skeptical eye while maintaining a focus on the spiritual power of their art. In her own words:

“Having the opportunity to be close to the makers of the music has provided an important part of my spiritual evolution. I’ve realized how the music that flows through them has little to do with their conscious awareness of what they’re singing or playing about and that it doesn’t matter. These are the bodies that carry the songs to us. These are the messengers, chosen by us to play out our passions. These are people like the rest of us. Some generous, some selfish, some genuine, some false. Fame adds to or subtracts from their beauty, their usefulness as artists, and their humanity. They mirror our self-projection. My work is that reflection.”