Rock Dreams

Guy Peellaert, Galerie Valérie Cueto, 2003
Curated by  Charlotte Léouzon

Painter, illustrator, Guy Peellaert got himself noticed in 1966 with ’Les aventures de Jodelle’a comic strip character based on ‘60s icon, Sylvie Vartan.’Pravda la surviveuse’ followed, based on singer Françoise Hardy. This Belgian image maker, marked by cinema and music, author of posters for the films of Bresson, Scorcese and Coppola, record sleeves for the Rolling Stone (It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll) and David Bowie (Diamond Dogs) is one of the artistic witnesses of the 70′s and 80′s. Inescapable pop art player, Guy Peellaert wanted to direct but his projects failed. Rather than filming his dreams, he paints them.

In 1973, he met the critic Nik Cohn. The pair built ‘Rock Dreams’ a cutting edge collection: 125 images that make up a crazy view of a crazy period. All the icons, Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Frankie Avalon and Lou Reed figure in this collection, this secret diary, begun 3 years earlier.

Portrait photos of stars, tableaux, photomontages (he doesn’t hesitate to resurrect and gather the departed around a dinner table) his works are all homages.

Sanctification or wild vision, the title is a mirror to the spirit of rock, with its orgies, its transvestite heroes. Photographic precision, decadence and a resounding success (more than 1 million copies sold). More than any one of his works, it is the setting of the scene at the end of an epoque.

The painter nourished by cinema, images, exploits reverse angle, the play of light, and films, this unreasoning time. On the occasion of the re-issue of ‘Rock D’ by Taschen, Guy Peellaert invested in the Galery Cueto.