Low Fidelity - The Photographs of Bobby Grossman 1975-1983

 Low Fidelity - The Photographs of Bobby Grossman 1975-1983 by Bobby Grossman

Bobby Grossman

The recently published Low Fidelity - The Photographs of Bobby Grossman 1975-1983 is a hugely credible addition to the steadily growing collection of catalogs, books & films looking back at the mid-70's thru mid-80's. Bobby Grossman definitely pushes the envelope of hip. 

Starting in 1975 when he met future Talking Heads Byrne, Frantz & Weymouth at the Rhode Island School of Design, Grossman moved on to NYC and joined the in-crowd downtown. His subjects included the Talking Heads, of course, as well as folks like Andy Warhol, David Bowie, William Burroughs, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Debbie Harry, Fab 5 Freddy, and others, at places like CBGB and the Mudd Club. Special mention goes out for Bobby being the official photographer of Glenn O'Brien's TV Party cable access show!

Read the excerpt below written by Chris Frantz & Tina Weymouth (check out their excellent new Tom Tom Club album here). It's one of the many contributions from the impressive list of Bobby's subjects & friends that you'll find inside. Big thanks to Bobby for the images & text.

 Order Low Fidelity here. Visit Bobby's official website here. 

Bobby is represented by Vertu Fine Art in Boca Raton, FL.

Glenn O'Brien

On the set at TV Party

Anya Phillips

Talking Heads in the studio

Rhode Island School Of Design in the mid seventies was a real hothouse of interesting characters ready to bloom. After four increasingly ambitious years in Providence, we had explored Benefit Street from one end to the other and we were ready to make our mark in the world of art. For some of us, there was never any question that this would mean moving to New York City. In New York we hoped to rub shoulders with our heroes Andy Warhol, Lou Reed and John Cale, Robert Raushenberg and John Cage.

We knew that New York would become our city, too, and that one day we would be identified not as artists who came to New York, but as artists who came from New York. We used to say things like "When I'm rich and famous,H but what we really meant was not that we wished to become rich and famous. but that we hoped our art would be remembered by kids like us in the future.

There was a bar called CBGB on The Bowery of all places, and this is where some of us would make history. Our friend Bobby Grossman from RISD had the foresight to bring his camera to CBGB and to start shooting photos that chronicle those very intense and important early days. We are older now, but we remember that intensity very well and are so pleased to have been among his subjects. Bobby photographed the cover for a song we would become famous for, "Psycho Killer," that we had written when we were still students at RISD. It was that great art school education that set us apart from most of the other bands. We had been taught to always put something unique unto ourselves into our art. This what we did, and this is what Bobby did, too. We hope you enjoy these images as much as we do.

- Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth (Talking Heads/Tom Tom Club)