Jean-Marie Périer — Rock’n’Roll — Polka Galerie — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: March 2 → May 4, 2013

Jean-Marie Périer became famous in the sixties when, during his collaboration with the magazine Salut les copains he followed the biggest music names of the time and witnessed a society undergoing revolution.

Rock’n’roll is an immersion into the heart of the star system in the sixties. The photographs exhibited, which constitute an important cultural heritage, tell the early tales of those destined for stardom : The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan or Stevie Wonder. Jean-Marie Périer is daring and produces color images, a practice that was then unpopular with his peers, which became his signature, the symbol of the mutation of the time.

Because Jean-Marie Périer developed strong relationships with each of these artists who became worldwide phenomenons, he was able to share the intimacy of stars. For twelve years, he followed them on tour, sat at their tables, and accessed their private apartments.

Mick Jagger would personally call on him during his stay in Paris. Then, a young photographer, he immorta- lized the outlandish poker games Keith Richards played in the Rolling Stones aircraft and captured the Beatles long waiting hours, when they were stuck in hotels between gigs. Some of the photographs on view have since become icons such as the Beatles Red Door or the portrait of James Brown beside his private jet.

A singular witness of these rare moments, the artist remembers the day “where the freedom to photograph was a fact to life. A right.” Today, no photographer could take the same images :

“Then, nothing was serious, anything was possible.”