Still Changing the World

‘Look what’s going on around the world. Look what’s going on with the corporations that own this entire planet.’   If those sound like sentiments from the 1960s, consider the source. Those are the recent words of Graham Nash, the legendary musician, songwriter, photographer and founding member of Crosby, Stills and Nash (CSN), whose current exhibition, ‘This Could Be You,’ is on view at gallery 169 in Santa Monica Canyon through October 13.   After all these years, the two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee (The Hollies and CSN), Woodstock performer (CSN’s first concert), Officer of the British Empire and activist retains his passion for pointing out injustices in the world.   On view at the gallery are his latest assemblages, each made with so many digital images that even the artist himself has ‘no idea’ how many are in each work. All pieces in the show were created in ‘three weeks of intense work’ on his Mac, Nash tells the Palisadian-Post.   Known for decades in the music world, Graham is well known in fine arts circles as well. He began his company, Nash Editions, in 1991 in Manhattan Beach, and was groundbreaking in its use of digital printing. ‘We were the world’s first digital atelier,’ Nash says of his still-thriving business.   Nash Editions’ first printer, an IRIS 3047, is now in the Museum of American History at the Smithsonian, as is his large-scale 1969 portrait of his band mate, David Crosby, the first one the company printed. ‘My first giant printer was $124,000, but I didn’t care. I knew what this machine could do if we could force it. And we pulled it off.’   The inspiration for the exhibit is varied, and includes lynchings in the South, big pharma and politics. Nash’s favorite piece is entitled ‘Heart’s Desire,’ and is his commentary on the pharmaceutical industry.   ’Every time you go to a supermarket the little shiny colored things are at kid height when you’re checking out. It’s a carefully designed program of trying to sell candy to kids,’ Nash says. ‘But that process later in life might possibly become, ‘Oh, I’ve always loved these little shiny blue pills and so I’m going to take some of them.’ And it’s not candy this time, but it’s pharmaceuticals.’   When asked if he could only do music or photography for the rest of his life, Nash has difficulty answering. ‘Well, you know the truth is I can’t stop writing songs. It just plagues me. I’m a musician at heart. But I’ve actually been a photographer longer than I’ve been a musician.’ His father introduced Nash to photography as a child in England, and he received his first camera at around age 11, an AGFA with leather bellows. A picture he took of his mother at that age is in his first book, ‘Eye to Eye: Photographs of Graham Nash’ (2008). He also released ‘Taking Aim: Unforgettable Rock ‘n’ Roll Photographs Selected by Graham Nash’ (2009).’   ’As a photographer I love taking pictures,’ Nash says. He’s particularly inspired by posters that are put up for various events, torn down, then replaced by other posters, yet pieces of the older posters remain. ‘These torn kind of things make incredible art to me. There are certain images that have words on them that provoke thoughts in me. One of them had a picture of an African-American man with his eyes closed, in the top corner, kind of ripped, and everything else was ripped, and I kind of was staring at the image, wondering did it have anything to say to me. And I thought maybe this black man is thinking of everything that went on against black people in the last 50, 60, 100 years here in America.   ’Then I read a story about people who used to take picnics to see black people hanged, to see them lynched. As soon as I heard that I started to collect all these images and seamlessly thread them all together. And it took me ages with each one.’ The result is an assemblage entitled ‘The Picnic.’   Nash shot with film until the quality of digital improved, noting that his first digital camera, which he bought in Japan about 25 years ago, did not produce great images. ‘It’s a different world now. You have a camera in two million phones,’ Nash says.   The seasoned photographer, who has taken thousands of images, loves anything that is ephemeral, and is partial to surrealism. One shot that stands out to him was taken in an antique store in Saratoga, New York, when Nash was walking around before a performance. He loved the juxtaposition of the glass door being held open by a large plaster cast of a hand, with an image of elephants behind it.   Reflecting on the assemblages that constitute the gallery 169 show, Graham says, ‘When I assembled the pieces and I looked at them all I thought ‘this is depressing.’ Within that is the ability to wake people up. Yesterday America became the world’s largest arms dealer, having sold $66 billion of arms to the rest of the world last year.’   Gallery owner Frank Langen was introduced to Graham at the gallery’s Don Bachardy exhibit several years ago. ‘We have been friends ever since,’ Langen says. ‘He’s an admirable citizen, willing to use his celebrity status to speak the truth.’   Currently on tour with CSN, Nash, 70, has lived in Hawaii with his family for 35 years. His next exhibit, ‘The Photography of Graham Nash,’ opens on October 2 at the House of Photographic Art in San Juan Capistrano.   Despite having changed the world in various milieus, Nash didn’t necessarily set out to do so. ‘I don’t do it purposefully. I’m just a curious man.’   For more information, contact gallery169.com.