Michael Stipe

Michael Stipe presenting a series of works-in-progress that continue an exploration of contemporary portraiture, instinct and abstraction. Featured in 'How to Spend It' - Financial Times Classical and conceptual forms create a cohesive whole from seemingly disparate elements, and build what is hopefully an inclusive and complete vision, in which the familiar and unfamiliar are given equal grounding. These works-in-progress include plaster, concrete, rotocast plastics, ceramics, bookmaking, and darkroom photographic printing. Process and the documentation of process becomes a part of the whole. All of this is done in the buildup to a one person exhibition at the Ica Milano Foundation, opening in December 2023 into 2024.

Portraits of resilience and vulnerability, with QR-linked audio of comments and anecdotes from Stipe In this third, photo-based chapter of the Damiani series, Michael Stipe explores strength, courage and vulnerability, pausing the project abruptly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. What follows is a lockdown interpretation of a 21st-century portrait, with a resolute desire to show our resilience, our humour, our collective fortitude and our adaptability. Through unique QR codes, the book is enriched by free audio content which deepens and enhances the discovery of the images. Scanning the QR code opens access to the “making-of” anecdotes and the intention behind the book, as told by Stipe. As an undergraduate studio art major at the University of Georgia, Michael Stipe (born 1960) studied photography and painting before leaving school upon the formation of R. E. M., the band for which he served as frontman and singer/songwriter until its dissolution in 2011. The sensibility that he began to develop during his time as an art student transferred to the spectrum of his work for R. E. M., from art directing all graphic, video and stage design, to writing, composing and performance, and his iconoclastic personal style. Stipe’s visibility as a media figure in the popular culture of the 1980s and ’90s left an indelible mark on the aesthetic trends of the time, many of which have trickled down to contemporary culture.

For half of his life, Michael Stipe has lived in a world between worlds, a constantly shifting moiré pattern. The past world is defined by the analog, the future world by digital. It was the advent of digital technologies and their integration into our daily lives some 30 years ago that hurled us headfirst into this tumultuous in-between state. Visually speaking, the present doesn’t know what it wants to be. Our current horizon and all that wanders there is dictated by both the past and the future, but there is no clear understanding of where the ‘right now’ stands. It is an epic, woozy mishmash, thrilling and unsettling. These states of being don’t communicate well— there’s no clear point where they mesh, and no agreed upon language exists to easily translate one into another—or to integrate them into a new system altogether. The tug of war between pixels and halftone, between past memory and new memory, and their vagaries of representation, is an endlessly fascinating and technically challenging field. Our Interference Times: a visual record is about that— its moiré patterns, its signal to noise, its interferences, its consonances and dissonances, its jittery disruptions, and the extreme present tense that we’re enveloped in. It is all changing before our eyes with or without our acceptance or agreement. How does one find agency within all of this? And so it is a confused and odd landscape that we are working to navigate. For Michael Stipe, we are moving closer to something that visually represents nature, perhaps even understands nature better. But the path to that appears to be the opposite, something man-made and destructive. Where will this lead us? The images included in this book serve as a road map to a place that, although right before us, still feels very far away.

"In Stipe's startling photographs and 12 brief written homages, Patti Smith is depicted as a down-to-earth goddess, a part of and apart from her evolving entourage of musicians, artists, poets (Allen Ginsberg makes an appearance), and friends. This isn't a traditional book of portraits . . . The overwhelming mood is one of disjunction, claustrophobia, exhaustion, temporariness--and the effect is raw and intimate . . . And Stipe] is no longer the "dork nerd" teenager, but a fellow musician -- and from his proud, caring mien, even a protector."--Publishers Weekly "An energetic and gracious tribute to not only a great artist, but also to a powerful moment in her oeuvre -- and to those who contributed to it and shared in it."--New York Journal of Books "Stipe's personal friendship lends something greater to the overall vision of this book. It isn't simply a set of snapshots of performances, rather a collection of rare moments. The personal nature of the anthology makes it all the more enticing and enjoyable. Smith, in all her glory and awe-inspiring talent, is portrayed in the truest light."--Verbicide Magazine "A fascinating book . . . including appearances by Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Tom Verlaine, the members of Sonic Youth and more . . . and the short text tributes to Smith by these people, scattered throughout the manuscript, are well worth your time."--Chicago Center for Literature and Photography This book comprises Michael Stipe's intimate and evocative photos of Patti Smith on tour in 1995, along with other cultural celebrities who appeared with her, such as Allen Ginsberg. In addition to text by Stipe, William Burroughs, and Patti Smith, there is also commentary from Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Lenny Kaye, Tom Verlaine, and more. Michael Stipe is a singer, photographer, film producer, and activist. He lives in Athens, GA, and New York, NY. R. E. M. formed in 1980 in Athens, GA, and is composed of Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Michael Stipe. Heralded by Rolling Stone as "America's Best Rock and Roll Band," R. E. M. rose from cult college radio status to sell more than seventy million albums worldwide and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007.