Moby 'Destroyed' Booksigning and Exhibition
EXHIBITIONS: CONFIRMED FOR LONDON, NEW YORK, GHENT, BERLIN, PARIS, MILAN, AMSTERDAM, BOLOGNA & LA
PHOTO BOOK: AVAILABLE WORLDWIDE FROM 16 MAY 2011
www.moby.com / http://www.damianieditore.it/catalogue/523
Destroyed, Mobyʼs forthcoming new album and accompanying book of photography is set for release on May 16th, alongside an international programme of exhibition of photographs, which will take place throughout the summer. Published by Damiani, the hardback edition of Destroyed is 128 pages and features 55 photographs taken by Moby.
A litany of intriguing photo images taken all over the world, Destroyed is a by turns stark, poignant, amusing and beautiful cavalcade of surreally deserted cityscapes and urban ʻnon- placesʼ - airport buildings with endless corridors that seem to lead nowhere, and semi- abstract compositions of cloud forms and landscapes shot from airplane windows.
A behind-the-scenes international odyssey, Destroyed introduces us to a side of touring that is often unexposed; secluded time spent in artificial spaces like hotel rooms and backstage waiting areas. The combined album and photo book provides an intimate look at Mobyʼs world and his creative process as an artist, both the music and photos were created in the same period and draw inspiration from the strange and sublime world of touring.
There are contrasting images of luminous but lonely hotel room vistas alongside vast, swaying crowd scenes, as snapped from the stage; their juxtaposition seemingly saying everything about the very psychological dislocation, the dramatic yin and yang of the international touring musicianʼs life. As Moby puts it, “Touring is all contrasts and strangeness, and that's what I'm trying to convey in these pictures.”
Taking, developing and printing photographs are not new departures for Moby. Once a graduate student of film and photography at SUNY Purchase (State University of New York),
heʼs been a keen SLR lensman ever since he was presented with a camera, aged ten, by his Uncle - a photographer at the New York Times.
To this day Moby carries a camera wherever he goes. The title and front cover of Destroyed depicts the final part of an LED security warning: Unattended luggage will be destroyed, which Moby snapped as it flashed up in a deserted hallway at New Yorkʼs La Guardia airport. Explains Moby, “One of my goals through my pictures is to take the normal and present it as odd and to take the odd and present it as normal.”
Although keen on a number of contemporary practitioners, Mobyʼs key photographic influences are drawn mostly from the early-to-mid 20th century, including such names as Irving Penn, André Kertész and Edward Steichen. Other, more recent influences include Sally Mann and Wolfgang Tillmans. “The technique behind photography in the ʻ70s and ʻ80s almost took precedent over the composition itself, and then Wolfgang Tillmans came along and said, ʻby the way, if you have a crummy little instamatic camera you can make remarkable imagesʼ, and thereʼs something really liberating about that.”
Mobyʼs songs from Destroyed were written late at night in hotel rooms around the world. A soundtrack for empty cities at 2AM, Destroyed evokes nocturnal feelings of both anxious isolation and the comfort of quiet solitude. The result is a 15-track collection that conflates the atmospheric and the disconcerting with the enveloping and beautiful – a record rich in the kind of melodies that are lodged in the brain by stealth rather than with a bludgeon.
Editors Notes:
Exhibitions:
10th May - 26th June - USA - NYC - CLIC - www.clicgallery.com/ 18th May - 19th June - UK - London, Proud Gallery http://www.proud.co.uk/weareproud.aspx 19th May - 4th June - BELGIUM, Ghent – A&Gallery www.angels-ghosts.com 21st May - 27th May - GERMANY, Berlin MADE Gallery http://made-blog.com/ 2nd May - 4th June - FRANCE - Paris, Colette - www.colette.fr/ 17th May - 7th June - ITALY - Milan Colombo Arte exhibition - www.colomboarte.com/ 1st June - 13th June - HOLLAND, Amsterdam - Galerie Alex Daniels – Reflex Amsterdam in collaboration with Famous Editions Amsterdam www.reflexamsterdam.com 21st July - 28th July - ITALY - Bologna - L'Inde Le Palais www.lindestore.com 10th September - USA - LA, Kopeikin Gallery - www.kopeikingallery.com/
Prints are available in standard and large sizes, standard in editions of 30 and large in editions of 10. All prints are signed and numbered by Moby.
Photo Book:
Moby – Destroyed
Photo book and CD is published by Damiani, RRP £25 Available from www.moby.com
Album:
Destroyed the album is available in CD, vinyl and digital formats. It is released in the UK by Mobyʼs label, Little Idiot.
A free EP is available to download from www.moby.com In addition, a trilogy of short films directed by Moby for each of the EP tracks is available online.
Mobyʼs next UK live performance is scheduled for 2nd June at The Roundhouse in Camden, London. Go to www.moby.com/live for tickets.
Produced by Moby and mixed by Ken Thomas (who has worked with David Bowie to Queen and Sigur Ros), Destroyed was recorded using vintage analog equipment and mixed on a 1972 Neve mixing desk from Abbey Road.
