{"id":7218,"date":"2025-05-20T17:47:15","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T17:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/05\/20\/exhibition-review-paul-mccartney-rearview-mirror-at-gagosian\/"},"modified":"2025-05-20T17:47:20","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T17:47:20","slug":"exhibition-review-paul-mccartney-rearview-mirror-at-gagosian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/05\/20\/exhibition-review-paul-mccartney-rearview-mirror-at-gagosian\/","title":{"rendered":"Exhibition Review: \u201cPaul McCartney, Rearview Mirror\u201d at Gagosian"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
<\/a>
Paul McCartney\u2019s \u201cRearview Mirror\u201d exhibition at Gagosian in Beverly Hills offers a rare, personal look at the earliest days of Beatlemania. Artwork \u00a9 Paul McCartney, Photo: Jeff McLane, Courtesy Gagosian<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Late last month, Paul McCartney<\/a> stopped by Gagosian in Beverly Hills to check out the install of his new show, \u201cRearview Mirror,\u201d which showcases thirty-seven photoworks taken by the music legend at the onset of Beatlemania in late 1963 and early 1964. Shot mainly on his 35mm Pentax SLR, the images are mostly black and white snaps chronicling a timeline that begins in Liverpool and London with rehearsals for The Beatles Christmas Show<\/i>. In early 1964, McCartney captured the band\u2019s residency at The Olympia Theatre in Paris, followed by their first U.S. tour in February with stops in New York, Washington, D.C., and Miami.<\/p>\n

\n<\/section>\n

McCartney stayed longer at the gallery than curator Joshua Chuang<\/a> expected\u2014over an hour. Before he left, he stood outside for a photo in front of the billboard promoting the show. \u201cWe were out there for a minute, and I don\u2019t know where these people came from,\u201d laughs Chuang at his brush with modern-day Beatlemania. \u201cThey came from out of nowhere, running with their kids in tow. And he was so gracious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Included in \u201cRearview Mirror\u201d is an early self-portrait taken in a room at the family home of his then-girlfriend, Jane Asher<\/a>. It\u2019s the same room where the melody for Yesterday<\/i> came to him in a dream. At the time, The Beatles were riding several hits in the U.K., but the foreign market remained uncertain. The Paris engagement mattered, but the U.S. mattered more. McCartney was reluctant to arrive there without a hit song at their backs. That changed when one night at the George V Hotel in Paris, when they received word that I Wanna Hold Your Hand<\/i> was top of the charts in the U.S.<\/p>\n

\n

SEE ALSO: <\/i><\/b>Ilana Savdie Collapses Form, Flesh and Meaning in Her White Cube Debut<\/i><\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s easy to look back now and see them as iconic, but they were just kids (average age 22), hoping this music thing might work out. Landing at the newly named John F. Kennedy<\/a> International Airport, following the President\u2019s assassination just a few months before, they found bedlam like they hadn\u2019t seen in Europe. Caravans lined streets and highways just to get a look at them as their car inched toward the Plaza. \u201cSo this is America,\u201d Ringo Starr<\/a> thought at the time. \u201cThey all seem out of their minds.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A\"A<\/a>
Paul McCartney, Being chased by fans on West 58th Street, New York City, 12 February 1964<\/em>. Artwork \u00a9 Paul McCartney, Courtesy Gagosian<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Not fully aware of the stir they were causing, they showed up at CBS Studio 50 to appear on The Ed Sullivan<\/a> Show<\/i>. Right before the curtain went up, a stagehand asked McCartney, \u201cYou nervous?\u201d \u201cNo, not really,\u201d he responded. The stagehand retorted, \u201cYou should be. Seventy-three million people are watching.\u201d It was the highest-rated broadcast of the era.<\/p>\n

The biggest difference between the touring museum exhibition of McCartney\u2019s photographs, \u201cEyes of the Storm<\/a>\u201d and the Gagosian show is that the latter is smaller and the artwork is for sale. Ranging from $15,000 to $80,000, pieces sometimes composed of several images from contact sheets provide variations on shots, context and narrative. But both shows were drawn from the roughly 1,000 prints McCartney found in storage during COVID.<\/p>\n

Three shots at Gagosian are exclusive to the gallery. One is of the band (sans Paul) waiting backstage at their 1963 The Beatles Christmas Show<\/i>. Another is a shot of Ringo at Miami\u2019s Deauville Hotel rehearsing for the band\u2019s second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show<\/i>. An accidental light leak casts an amber mist over the drummer. A third is taken from their hotel room, a color shot looking down at the beach where fans wrote in the sand: \u201cBring Ringo + Paul. I love Paul.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A\"A<\/a>
Paul McCartney, Self-portrait in a mirror at the Hotel George V, Paris, January 1964<\/em>. Artwork \u00a9 Paul McCartney, Courtesy Gagosian<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The images of adoring fans, cops, reporters and photographers all craning to get a look are captured in a frenetic, spontaneous manner that reflects a verit\u00e9 style popular in European cinema at the time. They also show some kinship with The Americans<\/i>, Robert Frank<\/a>\u2019s seminal 1958 book of street photography.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of that was the secret behind The Beatles, we didn\u2019t think things out too much. We were really spontaneous,\u201d McCartney tells Chuang about his photographic style.<\/p>\n

The Fab Four were familiar with U.S. culture through film but mainly through music and more specifically rockers like Elvis Presley<\/a> and Buddy Holly<\/a> (\u201cThe Beatles\u201d combines Holly\u2019s band, \u201cThe Crickets\u201d and the Beat poets). They were moved by the blues and the Memphis sound especially. Their tours landed amidst the Civil Rights Movement, and the band refused to play before segregated audiences and denounced racism in interviews.<\/p>\n

Less than twenty years after World War II, as seen from the U.K., the U.S. was a place of boundless possibility. \u201cIt was hard for us to believe that America, which had always been for us \u2018the land of the free,\u2019 failed to be free for so many different people,\u201d McCartney writes in his forward to the \u201cEyes of the Storm\u201d catalog.<\/p>\n

While in Paris, they were composing songs for A Hard Day\u2019s Night<\/i>, their first film that would begin shooting in April. They continued to tour throughout 1964, returning to the U.S. and playing the Hollywood Bowl in the autumn and Shea Stadium the following year. But by the time they needed an armored car to get to San Francisco\u2019s Candlestick Park in 1966, they had had enough of touring. As a studio band, they continued to grow in popularity, but each led separate lives, not appearing live again until their 1969 concert atop Apple Records in London.<\/p>\n

\"A\"A<\/a>
The show features thirty-seven photographs taken by McCartney between December 1963 and February 1964, chronicling The Beatles\u2019 rapid rise. Artwork \u00a9 Paul McCartney, Photo: Jeff McLane, Courtesy Gagosian<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A few months later, McCartney married photographer Linda Eastman<\/a> and Lennon, Yoko Ono<\/a>. Within a year, The Beatles were no more.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe remembers a lot,\u201d Chuang says of the 82-year-old McCartney. \u201cEspecially toward the end, it was a bittersweet history, the way they broke up, the infighting about money and all that stuff, creative rights. And then each going their separate ways, and John being assassinated. When Paul went solo, he didn\u2019t play a Beatles song for decades. He needed to establish himself outside of his identity as a Beatle. It was only not too long ago that his repertoire became mostly Beatles. This project and the \u2018Get Back\u2019 documentary brought him back to fully embracing his legacy with the band.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his forward, McCartney recalls the dizziness of those days. \u201cTo look at the strength, to look at the love and the wonder of what we went through that\u2019s captured in these photographs is the whole thing,\u201d he writes. \u201cIt\u2019s what makes life great.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/b>Rearview Mirror: Photographs, December 1963\u2013February 1964<\/b><\/a>\u201d is at Gagosian in Beverly Hills through June 21, 2025.<\/b><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"In<\/p><\/div>\n