"And then some of them are great storytellers." Chris Murray

I'm convinced it's always busy there.  The first time I walk into Govinda Gallery there are three employees working steadily at different tasks.  Chris Murray is engrossed in a conversation with David Burnett towards the back.  Burnett's pictures of Bob Marley, the best ones you've probably ever seen, are all over the walls.  Next to some of the pictures are little stories written by Mr. Burnett himself about the subjects, the shoot, the feeling.  A younger assistant tells me where to stand to get the best view.  She then goes back to her task of organizing a massive collection.  She's sprawled on the floor like a child.  I feel like I should help, not ask questions.

I've come just to see the gallery.  Todd from DFA (see Featured Gallery 1:1) has told me about this place as being one of his favorites, but not much else.  I don't know what to expect.  Chris Flynn, our art director / head photographer, is familiar with Burnett's work and tells me it's big time.  But it's a small gallery in Georgetown, right?

It's small like the 9:30 Club is small.  In fact the more I think about it, the more apt that analogy becomes.  Chris Murray, founder of the Govinda Gallery is at the forefront of rock and roll photography.  I learn on my second trip there that when Annie Leibovitz showed in DC, not the first time, but the first three times, she did so at Govinda.  Stanley Mouse, famed illustrator for the Grateful Dead wants to show his work in DC.  He's coming to Govinda.  David Burnett is already on the walls, the same walls that at one time held works by Henry Grossman, Alfred Wertheimer, David Fenton, and on and on and on.  "Who are these people?" you ask.  Grossman shot The Beatles; Wertheimer -- Elvis; Fenton -- the Chicago 7.  Their work made such periodicals as Rolling Stone and Time, back when those magazines meant something.  Chris Murray knows these people -- he works with these people.

In the beginning years of the Govinda Gallery, almost 34 years ago now, they showed primarily painting.  That was before Andy Warhol entered the picture.   "Andy Warhol was really our patron saint of the gallery," Chris says.  His introduction to Andy came through his best friends at Georgetown University, which is how DC captured Murray from New York in the first place.  After college his friends went back home and happened to go to work for Andy, first as interns and eventually working for the man.  Visiting his friends in New York meant becoming part of the Warhol entourage.  Says Chris of Warhol et al., "he really had a lot to do with my eye, and opened me -- and that group of people, [Bob] Colacello and [Christopher] Makos, they helped me develop my eye."  It was this friendship combined with Chris' good reputation which helped establish Govinda Gallery as the place to exhibit high-quality rock and roll photography.   "She [Annie Leibovitz] checked with Andy Warhol who she knew showed here," and thus Govinda Gallery is the first in DC to feature an Annie Leibovitz exhibit.  It was Annie though, not Andy, who defined the gallery's purpose.

In Chris Murray's words:

It was our great pleasure to show Annie's first three exhibits.  It's significant for me because [during] her first show here Annie was hanging the exhibit, I'll never forget, right there herself putting it up.  She had a big portrait of John and Yoko which we hung right here.  While she was hanging it I'm looking at the photo of John and Yoko, the famous one of John naked hanging on to Yoko -- it wasn't so famous then -- I mean it was the cover of Rolling Stone after John died, after he was murdered. Annie's first show was only two or three years after that tragedy, but anyway I've always loved music, you know rock and roll, blues, jazz, all of it, and I saw that photo and I thought to myself, "gee, I'm going to buy my first photo of Annie's."  I love John Lennon, I'm crazy about John Lennon, and so I went up to Annie and I said, "Annie, I've decided to buy your first photo.  I'm getting one of John and Yoko."  She turned to me and said, "You know Chris, John was murdered that day."  I didn't know that.  Most people didn't know it -- still most people didn't know it -- that that photo was taken a few hours before John was shot.  When Annie told me that I literally had what I call an epiphany ... I realized not only is this a good photo, it's an important photo, because of the context.  I decided that day to champion significant photographs documenting contemporary music -- rock and roll. 

 He goes on to say about that moment: 

That's what began our run with that material.  That's been really exciting and fun.  We literally championed a genre.  You don't get to do that everyday -- that's a rare thing to actually be able to say that we championed a photographic genre, and we did.   At the time you couldn't get another dealer, you couldn't get a curator, you couldn't get a museum -- you couldn't get anybody in the established photo world interested in photography related to rock and roll.  They considered it not important, because rock and roll really, believe it or not, 25 years ago was also still considered a bastard genre musically.  Today, every ad, everything has rock music in it -- 25 years ago nothing had rock music in it.  Trust me, nothing.

Now I'm happy to tell you it's come full circle. 

Most definitely it has.  Chris Murray is currently working with the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) to put together an exhibit of Wertheimer's photographs of Elvis Presley at age 21.  The exhibit, "Elvis at 21" starts at Los Angeles' Grammy Museum this December and ends its run at the Smithsonian in 2010.  That alone is exciting, and near to Chris' heart.  He really enjoys the relationship with the Smithsonian.  However, there's an even bigger project in the works for Murray and Wertheimer which should be unveiled sometime in the next couple of years.  Trust me, it's big -- but alas their news to share.

It is not unusual for Chris Murray and the Govinda Gallery to have a lot going on at one time.  The aforementioned Stanley Mouse exhibit was not on the radar until sometime between my first visit and my second.  Also in 2010 a collaboration between Murray and the Columbus Museum of Art in Columbus, GA will be presented to the world.   "Sound and Vision: Monumental Rock Photography" will feature apprximately 40 large scale photographs by about 17 different photographers.  The work will focus on some of the more notable figures in music, Kurt Cobain, Tupac Shakur, Janis Joplin, just to name a few.   Sarah Leggin, Govinda Gallery's current assistant director, was both excited and a bit daunted at times by the amount of projects.  You could see in her face that the quick turn around between Burnett's exhibition and Mouse's was going to make for some interesting days.  She agrees with me that at least it keeps things exciting.  I can attest to the fact that there's a lot there to hold your attention.

This is the result of Chris Murray's willingness to take on new endeavors.  Not too long after Govinda Gallery's inception they became the distributor for the England based publishing company, Genesis Publications.  Genesis produces limited edition autographed books.  Their first one was George Harrison's.  This is how Chris says that relationship came to be:

We really began because we were doing shows based on material in the books.  The first one was called "Blinds and Shutters" in fact.  We did a show on Michael Cooper who did the Sgt. Pepper cover and then he did the Satanic Majesties cover for the Stones.  He's the photographer.  We did a show of his photos and launched the book here and it was so successful the publisher said, "Chris why don't you be our distributor?" 

Being the distributor for Genesis lead Chris Murray into new territory.

I loved that relationship with Genesis Publications because they made beautiful books and we ended up selling a lot of thier books.  A lot of projects were coming through here that either they couldn't publish or didn't have the opportunity to, so I decided to start an imprint of my own.

Chris' love for books caused him to create "Inside Editions," an imprint which he co-founded, and with which he worked until just recently.  He has edited or co-authored ten books in the last five years.  These books add to the collection that is Govinda Gallery, as they are both on display and available for purchase there.  Like the artwork on the walls, the artwork is both significant and engaging.  One such book, "Rolling Stones: 40 x 20", includes twenty photographs from the likes of Mark Seliger, Kate Simon, Art Kane, and Ethan Russell.  Collaborating with Murray on this project is Richard Harrington, one time music editor for the Washington Post.  It's substantial.  It features the best in the industry.  Being there at the beginning gives Chris Murray a unique perspective on what has become a major genre of photography.  Says Chris, "These are photographs of our time, and so it's interpreting our time.  It took a little while for everybody to catch up.  Now there's great interest in the material and we work with museums throughout the world."

Govinda Gallery at one time might have been the only exhibitor of such work, but certainly they weren't the only ones interested.  Chris is quick to point out to me that the Washington Post took to Annie Leibovitz as quickly as he did.  As he says, "To the Post's credit -- to Sally Quinn and Paul Richard's credit -- they really got Annie.  Right away they saw what she was about.  When she had her first show here she was known but she wasn't the famous Annie Leibovitz that everybody talks about now."  The Post ran two features on Leibovitz on the same day.  Chris can't remember that being done before or since.

I ask him to what he attributes his success.  In addition to the people who supported his gallery, and maybe a little bit of luck, here's what he said:

A passion for the work -- a real love of what we show here.  One thing I will say, and I'm glad you ask that, [is that] I've never showed anything here that I haven't felt strongly about.  That was the key.  I'm not a salesman.  I'm really more of a curator.  I had such enthusiasm for the work we showed here and that was good because people could appreciate that.  You know I was just like anyone else.  If I sort of loved one of the great photos it didn't surprise me that other people loved that too when they came in.  The passion for the art we showed here, I think that is what did it really

Certainly that passion has not dwindled.  In keeping with the prevailing theme of this article, I'll let Chris Flynn's photographs convey that fact.

The converation with Chris Murray, I can hardly call it an interview, is packed with names and events, so much so that I have trouble keeping up.  It's indicative of the man and his ever-growing body of work.  Everything seems worthy of further inspection, for instance behind me in Chris' office is a photograph of Julia Roberts taken by Mark Seliger for his "In My Stairwell" series.  That series included photographs of Lou Reed, Tom Wolfe, Paul McCartney, Susan Sarandon, and so on.  The photograph of Julia Roberts is as striking as the woman herself, and Chris can tell you about what Seliger was trying to do and how the shoot was organized, where it was.   There are Leibovitz's pieces stacked, not on display, but stacked against his cabinet.  There's just no room in his office to hang them. 

It's an overload of images, events, and names, but it works and it's exciting.  It is my moment to come closer through photography to these great people and great events.  It is my connection to a time that was significant.  Being too young to have been there, this is my only connection.  Hearing Chris talk about the moment surrounding the photograph I understand a little better what makes these photographs "good".  I get caught up in the Govinda world, absolutely, but it only proves Murray's point.  These photographs can move you.  These photographs are important.