NIRVANA — Charles Peterson. Published by Minor Matters.
Like many elder-millennial/GenX cuspers, Nirvana defined much of my childhood. They were a gateway from 80s hair metal to grunge, punk, and hardcore, shaping so much of my identity to this day. Many of their most iconic live images — Kurt Cobain playing guitar mid-headstand, guitars smashing on stage, Kurt collapsed on Dave Grohl’s drumset, and others — were shot by Charles Peterson, a twenty-something Seattle "music fanatic" who documented nearly every angle of the band's six years together. In his expertly sequenced Nirvana, published by Minor Matters Books, Peterson's gritty black and white photos capture the rawness of their spirit from playing small clubs to being the biggest band in the world. What's most powerful is how you can almost feel and hear the band as you flip through it – the pages hum.
Jon Feinstein is a Seattle and NYC-based curator, photographer, writer, and co-founder of Humble Arts Foundation. Over the past 15+ years, Jon’s curatorial collaborations have included Photoville, Blue Sky Gallery, The Ogden Museum and PhotoNola, Photographic Center Northwest, Colorado Photographic Arts Center, and Barclays Arena in Brooklyn, NY for ArtBridge. He is a recipient of the 2019 BlueSky Curatorial Prize and the 2021 Peter S. Reed Photography Grant. His writing has appeared in VICE, Aperture, The Adobe Blog, TIME, Photograph, Hyperallergic, The Stranger, and Lenscratch.