As a young artist Dennis Hopper photographed the cultural and political life of the United States during the sixties. Blacklisted by the film industry, he traveled extensively between New York and Los Angeles with his Nikon between 1961 and 1967. His artist friends called him "the tourist" (because he always had his camera with him). Hopper's black and white photographs document people and events such as the Civil Rights March in Alabama, the backside of Hollywood movie sets and contemporary artists, actors and musicians.

His photographs are an eloquent testimony of the emerging social and aesthetic discourse of the sixties. The portraits highlight in a reserved yet elaborate way the complex personalities of the intellectual avantgarde: Ed Ruscha, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein were amongst his most famous subjects and colleagues as well as Martin Luther King, Timothy Leary and Allen Ginsberg.

Curator Daniela Zyman