Thursday, February 25, 2010

Danny Lyon - The Bikeriders @ Southeast Museum of Photography in Daytona


The exhibition opens this Saturday, February 27th. The museum will hold a reception from 5:00 to 7:30 p.m. It's just a quick drive to Daytona - about 40 minutes, and well worth it. The book that accompanies this series of photographs had a huge influence on my own development as an artist and photographer. It's really wonderful work, and I highly recommend heading over to the museum to view these prints in person.

"The use of the camera has always been for me a tool of investigation, a reason to travel, to not mind my own business, and often to get into trouble. The real question faced by a photographer or journalist today is not, of course, the type of film that is inside their camera; although that matters. The real question is what's inside their head. That has always been the question and will always be the question. [The Bikeriders] is a personal record, dealing mostly with bikeriders whom I know and care for. If anything has guided this work beyond the facts of the worlds presented it is what I have come to believe is the spirit of the bikeriders: the spirit of the hand that twists open the throttle on the crackling engines of big bikes and rides them on racetracks or through traffic or, on occasion, into oblivion." - Danny Lyon

About the exhibition:


In 1968, just before Easy Rider roared its way into American consciousness, Danny Lyon finished The Bikeriders. After four years with the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Gang, he had created one of the defining photography projects of the 1960s: The Bikeriders, and pioneered the style that has come to be known as the “New Journalism.” With its mix of grit, realism and romanticism, and its ground-breaking use of the bikers own stories and accounts, The Bikeriders was a landmark collection that documented the abandon and risk of motorcycle gangs, and powerfully propelled motorcycle counterculture into the mainstream American consciousness. The images and interviews in The Bikeriders are as raw, alive, and dramatic today as they were nearly four decades ago.

Above content from The Southeast Museum of Photography
More information on the exhibition can be found on the SEMP website - HERE.

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