Morrison Hotel Gallery Honors Joel Brodsky in New Exhibit

by Stephanie Colombini | 03/27/2015 | 5:26pm

Morrison Hotel Gallery Honors Joel Brodsky in New Exhibit

A new exhibit's opened in New York City's SoHo neighborhood that highlights an artist most famous for highlighting other artists.
Joel Brodsky's photographs produced some of rock n roll's most iconic album covers.  That's according to Aaron Zych with the Morrison Hotel Gallery.  
 
Zych says Brodsky's portrait-style photography created images for music legends like Aretha Franklin, Van Morrison, and Kiss.  
 
"Starting around 1966 or '67, there was a change in album cover artwork throughout the industry," Zych says.  "It used to be before, [cover art] was typically a photograph done in-studio or just a simple photograph done for putting on the packaging and having the music label and actual name of the album be able to be placed perfectly onto the actual album cover.  But during that time period, you were finding the artists were actually demanding to the record companies that they wanted more control over what was going on in terms of the actual album cover artwork and what was being seen by the public."
 
Zych says Brodsky's most famous for shots of the Doors' Jim Morrison, produced when the band shot cover art for their 1967 single "Light My Fire."
 
"I think that Joel definitely had an idea of what he really wanted to portray Jim as," Zych says.  "He really thought Jim was a good-looking guy that was going to make some really beautiful photographs.  So he saved the solo session with Jim Morrison until the end, so he photographed all the other band members separately prior to getting to Jim.  All the other band members  had actually left the photoshoot and Jim was just there by himself, so Joel had a good half hour or so with Jim to be able to do what he wanted and get what he wanted out of the photoshoot."
 
Zych says the month of March is the perfect time to honor Brodsky, who passed away March 1, 2007.    
 
"The Photography of Joel Brodsky's" features a collection of 30 photographs.  The exhibit's on display at the Morrison Hotel Gallery from March 27 to April 14.  

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