Dennis Hopper: The Lost Album

Fascinating exhibition at the Royal Academy of Photographs by the actor Dennis Hopper, taken between 1961 and 1967.

The show was set out to create the exhibition of Hopper’s work held in 1970 so consisted of white display case around three large white rooms. All the pictures, bar two, which were in that show were here and wherever possible they had used vintage prints. As the layout was based on the original show then the two missing prints still has their labels and were show with a white square. The show became as much about how a 1970s exhibition would have looked as about the pictures.

The pictures themselves were fascinating as they were a snap shot of a time and place. Hopper was also an artist so there were a lot of pictures of people in the LA art scene at the time. There were also sections on the civil rights movement, hippies, bikers and some lovely portraits. I did find the show a little misogynistic as there were few pictures of women and a number of those that were there treated then in sexist way. However I felt that too was a reflection of the times.

As I went round I felt I would have liked to know more about the people shown but I realised there were good information boards at the end and part of the point had been to show the works as they were originally shown. A brave option but it worked! 

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