Michael Stipe's Brooklyn Art Show Reflects His Ties to Athenian Jeremy Ayers

Beyond his renowned musical career, Michael Stipe has long been a fine-art photographer with an offbeat sensibility. To showcase that side of his artistic talent, Stipe mounted a solo exhibition of photographs, which opened at the Journal Gallery in Brooklyn, NY in early July. The gallery show coincides with the publication of his latest photo book, titled Volume 1.

The exhibition, called “Infinity Mirror” (mimicking the title of Yayoi Kusama’s popular art installation), clearly reflects Stipe’s formative years in Athens and his early aesthetic influences—most prominently the late Jeremy Ayers.

Entering the small, chic gallery, the first image viewers confront is a floor-to-ceiling photo of Ayers standing in a field of kudzu in winter. The stark undulations of the vines and the lone figure in an overcoat and signature hat is simply otherworldly, yet also a bit creepy and menacing. The scale, similar to Jeff Wall’s narrative pictures, enhances the impact of its visual and dramatic appeal.

Stipe’s second homage to Ayers, whom he acknowledges as both mentor and first love, is openly tender and revelatory. Behind a partition on the back wall of the gallery is a video Stipe made in 2014 of Ayers dancing alone. Ayers moves with balletic elegance; he’s fluid and floppy, an obvious free spirit. (Stipe said he shot the video when Ayers was “in his prime—at age 65.”) If you watch the video for a while, you can easily see the influence Ayers had on Stipe’s wispy onstage presence during his 30-year career with R.E.M.

Read more: https://flagpole.com/arts-culture/arts-culture-features/2018/08/01/michael-stipe-s-brooklyn-art-show-reflects-his-ties-to-athens-jeremy-ayers