Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2010 Designed by Jean Nouvel© Ateliers Jean Nouvel Photo: Philippe Ruault

The Serpentine Gallery in London’s Hyde Park is having a slumber party right at the heels of their annual summer party, which took place around their 10^th and latest eye-catching Pavilion, designed by the French architect Jean Nouvel.

Nouvel’s scarlet Pavilion set the scene for the darlings of the British art set attending. Ron Arad, Antony Gormley, Gavin Turk, Dinos Chapman,  Sir Peter Blake, Grace Jones, Tracey Emin and model Lily Cole were among the guests invited to play ping-pong and tennis with champion players and have their heartbeats recorded by French artist Christian Boltanski’s installation The Heart Archive. Also on view in the permanent galleries inside was the summer show of new inkjet prints by Wolfgang Tillmans.

July 8 2010 Summer Party at Serpentine Gallery, London, England. L to R: Dinos Chapman and Keith Tyson, Sir Peter Blake and Chrissie Blake, Tracey Emin. Photo: Nick Harvey

Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2010 Designed by Jean Nouvel © Ateliers Jean Nouvel Photograph: Philippe Ruault

Julia Peyton-Jones, the director who had originally envisioned this fund-raising concept, hosted this 40^th anniversary party for the gallery with the new, much talked about co-director Hans Ulrich Obrist. This year’s Pavilion is built on impressive cantilevered structures painted in vivid red, set in dramatic contrast to the green of the Hyde Park lawns. Nouvel said in his opening speech, “I want more disorder in this place,” imagining a relaxed place for people to play. The Pavilion is canopied by large retractable awnings and a sloping freestanding wall that allows the park to inhabit the interiors.

Notable architects that had been invited in previous years to design the free-form Pavilion include Daniel Libeskind (2001), Frank Gehry (2008), and Rem Koolhaas/Cecil Balmond (2006). The architect Zaha Hadid who had designed the 2000 Pavilion also came along for the celebration.

Spending the night in the park may not be as sordid as it sounds, because as part of the summer program, the gallery and the Victoria & Albert Museum are staging a sleepover event inside the Pavilion, beginning late at night with films, music, talks and a midnight banquet that will continue on until breakfast is served the next day at 8am. Artists, psychologists and scientists will host experiments throughout the night for the wired, sleepless guests to explore the psychedelic qualities of insomnia and alternative sleep-states.

Guests might be treated to some lullabies as well.

Sleepover at the Serpentine Pavilion: A night of creative thinking: 30-31 July 2010 from 10pm – 8am
Wolfgang Tillmans 26 June – 19 September 2010, Serpentine Gallery, Kensington Gardens   London W2

Tina Turner, Universal Amphitheater, Los Angeles, California October, 1985. Photo by Henry Diltz.

October 30th marked the opening of “Who Shot Rock and Roll” at the Brooklyn Museum, the first major museum exhibition that focuses on the photographers who have been chronicling the genre’s ascension over the past six decades. The exhibit thrusts those behind the lens out into the limelight to acknowledge their creative and collaborative role in  the history of rock music. From the first days of rock and roll photography, these artists have helped to romanticize and immortalize the musicians they were capturing, creating a visual identity that eventually blended into a revolution and a culture.

The exhibit features some of the industry’s paramount talents (Richard Avedon, David LaChapelle, Bob Gruen, Chris Stein, Albert Watson) and is a very adept representation of the many different spectrums inside the world of rock and roll. The exhibition is in six sections: rare and revealing images taken behind the scenes; tender snapshots of young musicians at the beginnings of their careers; photographs of live performances that display the passion, style, and sex appeal of the band on stage; powerful images of the crowds and fans; portraits revealing the soul and creativity, rather than the surface and celebrity, of the musicians; and conceptual images and album covers highlighting the collaborative efforts between the image makers and the musicians.

Madonna, Danceteria, New York City 1983. Photo by Maripol.

The exhibition is accompanied, as most exhibitions are, by a show catalog, this one in particular released by Knoph. Author Gail Buckland, who also curated the show at the Brooklyn Museum, brings the images to life with visceral narration, though in most cases the photos speak for themselves and need no introduction or explanation. Perhaps more surprising than this supposed-monograph’s profusion of text is the small trim size (10.5 x 9.8). As a show catalog, this book is very effective, providing readers with a substantial amount of background information about photographers that they may or may not be previously familiar with. However, as the first book of its kind to act as a definitive guide to the history of rock and roll photography, while calling to attention the impressive body of work of some of photography’s most-talented artists, it falls short of antecedent expectations.

Grace Jones performing at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London October 10, 1981. Photo by David Corio.

“Who Shot Rock and Roll” is on display at the Brooklyn Museum until January 31, 2010. Who Shot Rock and Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 to the Present is now available from Alfred A. Knoph for $40.