From 26 March to 30 April 2023, Leica Gallery London will present selected photographs by Andy Summers.
Summers has been developing a unique body of photographic work which he sees as a mental and visual counterpart to his music. For him, music and photography belong together:
“The qualities I am looking for are musical. That is the condition. You think of music in terms of harmony, line, shape, volume, quietness, dynamics… I think all of those terms can be translated into photography.”
It all began on tour in September 1979, when The Police were experiencing their first great success in the USA: “Sitting in a mid-town hotel room in New York, watching American television and running my hand up and down the neck of a battered Telecaster, it came to me that I should get a real camera,” Summers explains. Though he mentions the idea very casually, it was to be of momentous importance: “Our band, The Police, was moving fast in the US. It was fun, but sitting around and staring at the walls of hotel rooms was boring — and we needed diversions.”
Fortunately, right from the start, photography has always been more for Summers than just a distraction from the monotony of eternally identical hotel rooms. His preferred themes can be street scenes in American or Japanese metropolises or surreal and bizarre moments in South American cities, for example. To Summers, they reflect an urban surrealism, the “special strangeness” that arises when we question the seemingly familiar; for him the camera is the most natural instrument to record these moments.
In terms of his choice of camera, he was influenced and guided by one of the greats — Ralph Gibson. After being introduced to the Leica M4-2, he completely rediscovered photography: “I was hooked immediately. I felt that the Leica slowed down my picture taking; made it more meditative; made me think more, before pressing the button – with this camera, I felt as if I was finally stepping onto the true path”.
After the band finally said farewell in 2008, Summers continued his career as a solo musician. Photography, however, had become an essential part of his life, and his Leica M4-2 was joined by a Leica M Monochrom camera.
The Leica Gallery London exhibition will show 25 photographs from Andy Summer’s extensive career as a photographer, all of which are available for purchase together with two exclusive publications – Harmonics of the Night — a bespoke concertina-style limited edition memento of the exhibition — and A Series of Glances the new coffee table book produced by TeNeues.
Andy Summers’ photographs have been shown to huge acclaim in galleries and museums worldwide, including France, Australia, Japan, Canada, Spain and the USA.
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I think it’s very cool when an artist leaps to develop a new artistic skill and excels at it. I’ve seen some of Andy’s photographs posted elsewhere and he obviously has talent.
I’m not sure if this exhibition will tour or not but I can guarantee that a very musical city like Chicago, with a dedicated Leica dealer, would likely love to host this exhibition.