MAKiNG iT
Leica Gallery London is pleased to present MAKiNG iT: An Intimate Documentary of the Seattle Indie, Rock & Punk Scene, 1992-2008, by American artist Bootsy Holler, curated by Virginia Damtsa and Lou Proud. 28 SEPTEMBER 2024 – 28 OCTOBER 2024
This exhibition was conceived during Photo London 2023, when Leica’s photography expert, Lou Proud, visited curator and art dealer Virginia Damtsa’s exhibition, “Contaminated” by Holler. During this visit, Damtsa gave Proud an exclusive glimpse of Bootsy’s unseen post-grunge Seattle photographs.
The exhibition features images soon to be published in the monograph MAKiNG iT: An Intimate Documentary of the Seattle Indie, Rock & Punk Scene, 1992-2008. Holler’s personal story is witness to an artist in her 20s documenting little-known bands who later defined a decade in music history – capturing live gigs, portraits, and the remnants and landscapes of a scene that was the formative stage for groups such as Death Cab for Cutie, Fleet Foxes, Interpol, Macklemore, Modest Mouse, The Gossip and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, along with Beck, Foo Fighters- Dave Grohl, Moby, Pearl Jam, The Posies, and R.E.M.
“I lived it: the dark days, the rain, the dampness in your bones. I supported local venues, lived with a band, drank coffee, shot heroin, got pregnant, and had an abortion, not in that order. This collection of images is a piece of my life while trying to make it, stay alive, and survive as a working artist, just like all these musicians.”
The work is a pilgrimage back in time, a nostalgic trip for anyone who remembers their 20s, cherishes music or yearns for a time when nobody texted or had a camera in their pocket. This series transcends the boundaries of music or a single life story. It’s about heeding your instincts. “I was documenting my life. The musicians, promoters, and bouncers were my friends, and I went to see bands I enjoyed and places I could get in for free.”
Holler was a working photographer with the personality to walk into small venues and document the music scene easily. “I didn’t know I was in the middle of something new.” Not only was the Seattle sound changing, but bands from New York to California came through the clubs with an experimental and progressive energy embraced by the scene. The kids had rebelled, and a new sound was evolving.
Holler currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. The Society of Photographic Journalism has recognized her. Her art images have appeared in numerous publications such as VOGUE, House & Garden, NPR, Lenscratch, PDN, and Chinese Photographer Magazine. Her seminal work is in the permanent collection of the Grammy Museum. In 2020, the Shanghai International Photo Festival invited Holler to exhibit; she showed work at The Foley Gallery in NYC and, in 2022, a solo show at the Lodge in Los Angeles. She has hung art in many venues, including Fotofever in Paris, Photo London, The Griffin Museum of Photography, the California Museum of Photography, and the Center for Photographic Art. In 2019, she published her second monograph, TREASURES: Objects I’ve Known All My Life. Bootsy is finishing her new book about the Seattle music scene between 1992-2008. In November, Holler will also exhibit her “Contaminated ” photo sculptures at the Center for Fine Art Photography, Colorado.
This is the first exhibit of Holler’s documentary work in the UK.
Please contact – gallery.london@leica-camera.com for more information.
