UNPOPULAR : The exhibition documenting Australian tours from Nirvana, Beastie Boys, and more
Currently at Sydney’s Powerhouse museum, this free exhibition features posters, photos, and video from over a decade of international musicians visiting Australia’s shores.
Late last year I visited Stephen “Pav” Pavlovic’s Unpopular exhibition at the Powerhouse. My interest was motivated by the mention of Summersault, a summer festival Pav ran in 1995 which featured Beastie Boys, Beck, DJ Shadow, an art exhibition, and skateboarding.
I interviewed Pav about Summersault in issue four of The Shadow Knows, where I go into more detail about the festival and the amazing people involved. Read the article here:
Although Summersault features heavily, the Unpopular exhibition also showcases other tours Pav was involved with during his career as a promoter.
When you walk into the first room, the walls are covered in photos of the many musicians Pav helped bring to Australia. Pavement, Beastie Boys, Courtney Love, Sonic Youth, and Nirvana are just some of these.
Nirvana were an important reason Pav’s career took off, and they’re featured heavily in the exhibition, given their own room dedicated to their Australian tour in 1992. Back then, Pav helped bring the band to the first Big Day Out festival in Sydney right as their debut album Nevermind was taking off, and then they went on a national tour.
A 19 minute video recording from Nirvana’s Sydney show is included, along with a new audio interview with Dave Grohl about the tour that you can listen to through an old rotary phone on the wall. There’s even a wall displaying Nirvana bootlegs owned by Pav.
Possibly one of the most impressive rooms in the exhibition is dedicated to all of the posters from Pav’s tours. Plastered all over the walls are posters for the aforementioned Beastie Boys, Beck, and Nirvana, alongside framed originals. There’s even video footage from some of the tours played on small TV screens, and in the middle of the room is a long display of photographs, set lists, zines, tour itineraries, letters, and more.
You could spend a lot of time in this room looking over everything, and it’s just a pity they’re all behind glass and we can’t browse the booklets and turn their pages to see more.
The next room is a series of video interviews with members of Beastie Boys, Bikini Kill, Hole, Sonic Youth, etc. all talking about the fun times they had on tour in Australia. Alongside the interviews, there’s a slideshow of photos from Pav’s collection, as well as some from the artists, such as Hole’s Melissa Auf der Maur which are fantastic to see.
Another video takes over the next room, with a three channel installation featuring remixed footage from the Summersault festival set to original music by Warren Ellis. It’s an incredibly beautiful experience sitting here to watch this video artwork, but at the same time I would have loved to see some of the performances with their original audio too. While the artwork is fantastic, it’s such a tease knowing there’s a recording out there of an entire festival that hasn’t been seen.
The final section of the exhibition takes you through a painted hallway to several more small rooms. The hallway is dedicated to some of the art from the Summersault exhibition Culture Is Our Business. Mike Mills, Spike Jonze, Mark Gonzales, and Rita Ackermann are represented here. No Alternative Girls, the short documentary directed by Tamra Davis which was also part of Culture Is Our Business, is included on a TV in one small room, as is a 30 minute recording of the Beastie Boys when they performed in Sydney under the alias Quasar.
Finally, there’s two more rooms dedicated to Summersault. In one, there’s a funny video of Ben Lee interviewing people like Sonic Youth and Beastie Boys backstage. Again, this is on a small TV, and it’s amazing to see not just the people being interviewed, but also the many other artists walking past in the background, like DJ Hurricane and DJ Shadow.
There’s also the Summersault tour booklet which has been displayed with every page open so you can read the entire thing. But what’s most impressive here is the wall of photos featuring (possibly) everyone involved with Summersault, including several from the New Year’s Eve performance in Sydney, where all of the bands from Summersault got on stage to bring in the new year.
I walked through the exhibition twice and it really wasn’t enough. There’s so much to see, and as I said before, it’s just a pity we can’t browse through all of the tour booklets too.
Thankfully, a book based on the exhibition is planned, so I hope that includes everything from the exhibition and more, as there’s so much amazing artwork from all of the tour posters and photographs.
If you get the chance to visit, Unpopular is on now until 4 June 2023 at Powerhouse in Sydney, Australia. Further details at the Powerhouse website.
