Contributed by Patricia Chesbro, Palmer Museum of History & Art
Backstage Pass: Baron Wolman and the Early Years of Rolling Stone
November 2017 – February 2018
Palmer Museum of History & Art and Visitor Center
723 S Valley Way, Palmer
FREE Event
November 9th of this year marked the 50th anniversary of the first issue of the Rolling Stone Magazine. The Palmer Museum of History and Art is celebrating this diamond year by hosting Backstage Pass: Baron Wolman and the Early Years of Rolling Stone, a traveling exhibit from the ExhibitsUSA and Mid-America Arts Alliance.
Immortalized by writers, filmmakers and musicians from Stephen King to Dr. Hook and The Medicine Show, the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine has embodied generations of popular culture. For artists, the cover is a coveted career achievement, and for many readers, it represents a fantasy realm of the rock-n-roll lifestyle. The exhibition explores how the lens of one artist’s camera captured and helped define one of the most important eras in rock-n-roll history. Wolman’s techniques resulted in photographs and eventually magazine covers that capture a rawness and emotion of the artists and a generation. Together, Backstage Pass encourages our understanding of how images become iconic symbols of American history.
Photographs in the exhibit chronicle Wolman’s work with artists such as Frank Zappa, Tina Turner, George Harrison and B.B.King. The exhibit includes contact sheets from which magazine photos were chosen, as well as an interactive unit that allows the visitor to decide which of the photos would work best as the magazine’s cover.
Backstage Pass is curated by Ben Ahlvers, gallery director at the Lawrence Arts Center in Lawrence, Kansas. The exhibition is toured by ExhibitsUSA, a national program of Mid-America Arts Alliance (M-AAA), which sends more than 25 exhibitions on tour to more than 100 communities across the country every year. M-AAA is the oldest non-profit regional arts organization in the United States.
About Palmer Museum of History & Art and Visitor Center:
The Palmer Museum and Visitor Center is located at 723 S. Valley Way in Palmer (the log building). It is open on Wednesdays through Fridays, 10:00AM to 5:00PM, in January and February. Please come by to see this extraordinary exhibit.
