From alt-rock bassist Melissa Auf der Maur—of Hole and Smashing Pumpkins fame—comes a photographic love letter to the last analog decade.

As Melissa Auf der Maur toured the world, documenting life backstage, onstage and in the crowd. She instinctively turned the camera on herself as the most intimately available subject, as informed by her studies at Concordia University where her professor, Raymonde April, introduced her to the subjective self-portraits of Francesca Woodman. By the time she joined Hole for their Live Through This world tour, she requested a roll of 35mm film backstage at every venue. Her daily practice, continually documenting herself and her surroundings, expanded through her creative uses of self-timers and cable releases to take snapshots in the middle of performances. This dedication resulted in an extensive archive of over 10,000 photographs that go behind the scenes of rock-and-roll stardom.

Before becoming the bassist for ’90s alternative rock bands Hole and, later, the Smashing Pumpkins, Montreal-born Melissa Auf der Maur studied photography at Concordia University. She maintained her daily practice while on the road, requesting a roll of 35mm film at every venue as part of her rider and resulting in over 10,000 images documenting life onstage and away from the crowds. A major exhibition of Auf der Maur’s photographs is currently on view at the Art Gallery of Ontario and is accompanied by a hardback photobook, Melissa Auf der Maur: My ‘90s Rock Photographs, published by the AGO and DelMonico Books.Auf der Maur’s photographs have been featured in publications including National Geographic and Spin, among others. In 2010 she cofounded the nonprofit arts and performance center Basilica Hudson, located in upstate New York. This past March, Auf der Maur published her memoir, Even the Good Girls Will Cry.

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