Melissa Auf Der Maur is opening up her personal archive from rock’s last analog decade. The former Hole and The Smashing Pumpkins bassist will release a new photography book, “My ’90s Rock Photographs“, on September 8 through DelMonico Books and the Art Gallery of Ontario — a striking, intimate look behind the curtain of ’90s alternative rock stardom.
As the bass player for two of the most iconic alternative bands of the 1990s, Auf Der Maur spent years touring the world while quietly documenting everything around her — life backstage, onstage and out in the crowd. She instinctively turned the lens on herself as the subject most readily available, an approach shaped by her studies at Concordia University, where her professor Raymonde April introduced her to the subjective self-portraits of photographer Francesca Woodman.
By the time she joined Hole for their “Live Through This” world tour, the habit had become a ritual: she requested a roll of 35mm film backstage at every venue. Her daily practice of capturing herself and her surroundings grew more inventive over time, with creative use of self-timers and cable releases allowing her to snap photos in the middle of performances.
That dedication produced a remarkable archive of over 10,000 photographs offering a candid window into rock-and-roll fame. The images capture moments like playing with Courtney Love‘s daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, hanging out with Pavement, Sonic Youth and Beck, riding in the back of a limousine with Drew Barrymore;, and passing time on the set of the music video for Hole‘s song “Celebrity Skin“. Her work was even commissioned by magazines such as Spin to document Lollapalooza 1995 and the Tibetan Freedom Concert of 1996.
Gritty and edgy yet playful and deeply personal, Auf Der Maur‘s photographs celebrate the independent spirit of the ’90s and offer an insider’s view of a decade that existed before smartphones and digital recording software. The book draws on a curated selection of more than 200 photographs, piecing together a moving self-portrait of a young artist living through the ’90s alternative scene — a genuine time capsule for Generation X.
Born in 1972, Auf Der Maur was playing in her indie band Tinker, which had just opened for The Smashing Pumpkins, when Billy Corgan recommended her to Courtney Love as the new bassist for Hole. She stepped into the grief-marked “Live Through This” world tour, which began soon after the deaths of both Kurt Cobain and Hole bassist Kristen Pfaff, and went on to play on the band’s Grammy-nominated album Celebrity Skin.
After leaving Hole, Auf Der Maur joined The Smashing Pumpkins as bassist for their farewell tour from 1999 to 2000. In the years since, she released a handful of solo albums, moved to Hudson, New York, became a mother, and co-founded the multidisciplinary art center Basilica Hudson.
The book arrives during a busy creative chapter for Auf Der Maur, who released her acclaimed ’90s memoir, Even The Good Girls Will Cry, earlier this year. The photography project also ties into a major solo exhibition of the same name at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, which opens to the public in September and is set to travel internationally. The exhibition pairs her images with videos, an immersive installation titled Bass Womb Room and previously unheard ’90s solo demos alongside new instrumentals, a full sensory tribute to the era that defined both her and her generation.
