Adam Yauch's death has been confirmed by the Beastie Boys's publicist.

No words. Only sympathy and love for the family, friends, and fans of Yauch.

I visited the opening reception of Sunny Bak's and Cey Adams's show titled Solid Gold Hits at Ivy Brown Gallery last night. The reception had a good turnout, which included a supermodel, a comedian, a hip-hop photographer, and a Pageant Tour cameraman, among others.

The show features Bak's photos of the Beastie Boys in the '80s and Adams's Beastie Boys design work. All the works are available to purchase. View a price list HERE [DEAD LINK].

Among the works are four of Bak's photographs dressed with Adams's graffiti. They are one of a kind. Adams told me it was Bak's idea to collaborate on a few works. In my opinion, they are the gems of the show.





Adams has posters, prints, and his Adidas wear in the show. The posters and prints are signed with the edition noted. This is true of Bak's photographs as well. (See Bak's photographs in an earlier post.)





In addition to her photographs, Bak has her Beastie Boys Converse sneakers in the show. They are custom-ordered.



The show continues at Ivy Brown Gallery (675 Hudson Street, 4FL) through June 21. If you are interested in purchasing any of the works, contact Ivy Brown Gallery.


Cey Adams and Sunny Bak

If you missed Sunny Bak's exhibit of Beastie Boys photos at Rush Arts Gallery a few weeks ago, you have another chance to see the photos at the Ivy Brown Gallery in New York. Bak and designer Cey Adams have teamed up for a new exhibit titled Solid Gold Hits, featuring Bak's photos and Adams's Beastie Boys design work.

The opening reception for Solid Gold Hits is tonight from 6-8:30 p.m. The exhibit will be on display through June 21.

Ivy Brown Gallery
675 Hudson Street, 4FL
New York, NY 10014

Video Transcription

Mike: "This is a pinwheels installation by two artist from the east coast, Jim Drain and Ara Peterson. It’s something that I had seen on YouTube actually. I’d never seen it in person. I knew that it had appeared at Dietch Projects in New York, but I missed it. I was kind of excited. It was like being like a little kid in a candy store. You know, I got to actually choose to have this be part of what we’re doing here at MoCA. So...and I think it’s one of those things where you can see it on video, you watch it on the show, but it means so much more when you walk through it. And it’s actually been really great to see that everybody that has come through here to the museum kind of walks through here kind of amazed and almost like you instantly become like a little kid."

Chuck D and LL Cool J induct Beastie Boys into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame:



Mike's and Adam's acceptance speech:



Mix Master Mike, The Roots, Kid Rock, and Travie McCoy perform a medley of Beastie Boys song at the induction ceremony:

From Rolling Stone:

Beastie Boys’ Adam Yauch Will Not Attend Hall of Fame Induction
Group will be unable to perform at induction ceremony in Cleveland tonight

Adam “MCA” Yauch of the Beastie Boys will be unable to attend the group’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland tonight, a representative tells Rolling Stone.

“Beastie Boys regret that Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch will be unable to join Mike ‘Mike D’ Diamond and Adam ‘Adrock’ Horovitz at the band’s induction into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame in April,” reads the group’s statement. “Mike, Adam and Adam are truly grateful for the honor but with only two of the three Beastie Boys attending, they will unfortunately not be able to perform at the ceremony.”

Yauch revealed he had cancer in a salivary gland in his neck in July 2009, which delayed the group’s touring plans and scheduled September 2009 release of Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 1. The album, now titled Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2, eventually came out in April 2011. Last year, Yauch announced that he was optimistic about treatment, but was not yet cancer-free.

Cey Adams's handy work for Kings of Rock photo exhibition

I got a sneak peek of the Kings of Rock photo exhibition, featuring photos by Sunny Bak and Talib Haqq, at Rush Arts Gallery yesterday afternoon. If you are in the New York City area, you should make an effort to see this great collection. The photographs capture a special period in both the Beastie Boys's and Run-DMC's history.

Sunny kindly agreed to allow me to videotape her photos with her narrating the story behind them:



Sunny's photos in this exhibition are available to purchase as 16 x 20 limited edition prints. All of the photos, with the exception of the first photo seen in the video, are $1000. The first photo (Beastie Boys on 18th Street) is $1200. You know you want one on your walls.

Talib Haqq's photos are of Run-DMC and the Def Jam/Rush Mgmt family. Talib agreed to be videotaped too, but unfortunately his photos were not hung on the wall before I had to leave so the video didn't get shot. Talib entertained me with stories of the Beastie Boys and Russell Simmons back in the day. Talib is the person who introduced Cey Adams to Russell Simmons, so he says Cey owes him for his career. Oh, snap!



In addition to Sunny's and Talib's photos, the exhibition includes several hip hop photos by other photographers and two new art works by Cey Adams, one of which is shown below.



The opening reception for Kings of Rock is today (Thursday, April 12) from 7-9 pm. It will be preceded by a presentation and book signing related to the book Def Jam: The First 25 Years of the Last Great Record Label with Bill Adler, Dan Charnas, and Cey Adams from 5-7 pm.


Bill Adler checks out Sunny Bak's photos at Rush Arts Gallery

When the Kings of Rock exhibition closes on Saturday, April 14, Sunny will be showing her photos at Ivy Brown Gallery in Manhattan in May. She also has plans to show the photos in Brooklyn, Boston, Europe, and Japan.

Rush Arts Gallery
526 W. 26th Street, Suite 311
New York, NY 10001

Photo by Sunny Bak

Kings of Rock Photo Show at Rush Arts Gallery on April 12
Three-Part Event Marks Beastie Boys' Induction to Rock Hall of Fame

Just two days before the Beastie Boys are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, New York's Rush Arts Gallery is marking the occasion with a special photo exhibition and book event. The opening reception will be held at Rush, 526 W. 26th Street, Suite 311, on the evening of Thursday, April 12. The show will stay up through Saturday, April 14.

Titled Kings of Rock, the show will feature a dozen of Sunny Bak's iconic mid-'80s photos of the Beastie Boys, and a complementary selection of photos titled "Wadeva Images Present Rush Artist Management, 1981 To the Present," featuring the photos of Talib Haqq.

The reception will be preceded from 5 until 7 pm with a presentation and book signing devoted to Def Jam: The First 25 Years of the Last Great Record Label, featuring Bill Adler and Dan Charnas — the book's authors — and Cey Adams, the book's designer. (The Beastie Boys recorded their first album, Licensed to Ill, for Def Jam.) The reception itself will run from 7 until 9 pm.

Sunny Bak, a student of Phillipe Halsman, was shooting the downtown scene for Details magazine when she was introduced to the Beastie Boys in the early '80s. Her best-known photo of them graces the centerfold of Licensed to Ill.

Talib Haqq, like Russell Simmons, came of age in Hollis, Queens. One of the earliest documentary photographers to set his sights on hip-hop, he began shooting many of Russell Simmons's management clients in 1981, starting with Kurtis Blow. He may be best known for the cover of Run-DMC, the debut album by the legendary trio, which features his stark black and white photos.

Def Jam Recordings: The First 25 Years of the Last Great Record Label was published by Rizzoli in October of last year. It was praised in Library Journal as "an extremely readable and browsable book, with glorious photos."

For more information, please contact Charlotte Mouquin at the Rush Arts Gallery: charlotte@rushartsgallery.org or 212-691-9552.

Hard Rock Cafe has organized an exhibit honoring some of the 2012 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees. Code Breakers of Rock and Roll features memorabilia of Beastie Boys, Guns N' Roses, and Red Hot Chili Peppers, and spotlights the career of music journalist Jane Scott. The exhibit, which is located at The City Room, a temporary exhibition space between the Cleveland Ritz Hotel and Hard Rock Cafe, opens Friday, April 6 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. The exhibit is free and open to the public through April 16.

A friend was invited to a sneak peek of the exhibit last night and snapped the following photos for us:

Video Transcription

Mike: What’s going to happen is installations are cranking everything up to eleven. Musicians, visual artists, trying to break it up so it isn’t the typical white wall, cement floor kind of gallery experience. It’s very important to kind of hit the reset button for people — to kind of wipe out whatever expectations that they have when they walk in. If there’s one thing that I’m trying to create here in this big, huge space is this feedback of information that’s going back and forth. An experience journey was that there was no way that this was going to be possible, but I didn’t know, so I just kind of like, do it. Experiential mind-altering fun. Like my dream of what my house would be like — like a fantasy of what it could be if you came over. Why don’t I meet you? We’ll have a cup of coffee. On top of a big, huge Tom Sachs sound system. We’ll play some music on that.