Robert Landau

“Tower Records at Night (1977)”

ARTIST STATEMENT

This image of Tower Records exterior and parking lot at night, located at the north/west corner of Sunset Blvd. and Horn Ave was taken in 1977. That building is now a Supreme brands outlet selling exclusive items to a younger, more contemporary generation of hipsters. But in the heyday of what now is considered Classic Rock I was living just a short walk away, and spent many hours there. The interior of Tower Records resembled a large library with shelves overstocked with all the latest music releases including all of that period’s prevailing genres. But instead of quiet, speakers stationed around the shop blared the current hot hit records at high-volume. The exterior was a whole other matter. The building itself presented a low-slung fairly non-descript horizontal building that could easily be overlooked. Stationed at the geographic heart of the Strip midway between historic Hollywood hotels and watering holes like the Sunset Marquis and Chateau Marmont to the east, and legendary nightclubs like The Roxy and Whisky A Go Go to the west- Tower Records was never overlooked. Below a huge red-on-yellow sign that ran the length of the building, the structure came to life, plastered with so many posters that the record store itself resembled a giant music billboard gone amok. The shop remained open until late at night in order to catch fans leaving live shows and nearby eateries, and remained a constant hive of activity. To capture that sense of energy and Tower’s relation to the Strip, I positioned my camera on a tripod on the sloping hill of Horn Ave. running up the eastern edge of the property, and looked down on the store and its parking lot. Several long exposures on Kodachrome film produced this image, that for me captures the excitement and the sense of place and time of a unique location in both the history of L.A., and in rock and roll.

ARTIST BIO

Robert Landau was born in Los Angeles and began photographing his native city in the mid-1960s, at first shooting street scenes in black and white. Early influences included books of photographs primarily by European street photographers from the early 20th century such as Eugene Atget and Andre Kertesz. In the early 1970s Robert, still in his teens, moved with his father, art dealer Felix Landau, to an apartment just above the Sunset Strip and became fascinated with the enormous hand-painted outdoor advertising panels depicting all of the period’s greatest rock stars that were then lining the famous boulevard. Landau quickly understood that Los Angeles, unlike Paris, was a city that demanded to be seen in color. In the L.A. urban landscape, color, more than an embellishment, is part of the subject matter. Over the decades Landau has continually trained his camera on particular aspects of this city’s unique landscape and popular culture, and has now amassed an extensive archive of imagery, a great deal of which was captured on Kodachrome transparency film. Roberts latest book, Art Deco Los Angeles (Angel City Press, 1925) derives from that archive, and captures treasures both landmarked and lost from one of the most glamorous architectural eras ever. Landau through his imagery seeks to portray a personal vision of urban elements that are one of a kind, artistic and capture the personality and spirit of an easily misunderstood city at specific periods in time.

Selected by Steven Churchill, Curator and Gallerist.