Through the lens of Dennis Hopper

The exhibition shows more than one hundred photographs taken by this memorable actor which relate, from his own experience, the excited American counter-culture of the seventies. 

Dennis Hopper is remembered above all as actor and director, but he also dealt with literature, music, painting and fortunately, as this exhibition proves, with photography. This “middle-class farm guy”, according to him, born in Dodge City (Kansas) was convinced that all the different facets of human creativity were “parts of the artistic being” and this rejection of the limits, whatever they were, marked his career and his life.

He was 20 when he succeeded in Hollywood with South of Eden (1955) and Giant (1956). It was then when he met James Dean, who advised him to use photography to practice the framing of a cinematographic camera and he told him: “one day you’d like to direct films”. 

During the rests before and after filming, Hopper took photographs of everything: from the set to the parties and, after some time, the Martin Luther King’s speeches and the antiracist demonstrations; in general, the city life; and even the roads that would proclaim Hopper a modern myth with the film Easy Rider (1969), that he directed and had the leading role, symbol of the spirit of the American counter-culture and his defiance to the established norms. 

He took the biggest part of these photographs between Los Angeles, London and New York, where he met Andy Warhol and took part in the artistic events of The Factory. The images he took are some of the most essential keys to understand the development of Art in the second half of the XXth century in America.

The exhibition houses 141 photographs by Hopper and some of his paintings and sculptures, together with a selection of works by close-to-pop artists that he collected:  Robert Rauschenberg, Ed Ruscha, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg and Tom Wesselmann, in a tour completed with film extracts, records and magazines, in order to contextualize the exhibited artworks and recreate the effervescent cultural atmosphere of the time. 

More information: Museo Picasso de Málaga

Until September 29th 2013