Hot book alert! ‘Melissa Auf der Maur: My ’90s Rock Photographs’ releases this week!

Music and photography lovers, rejoice! Onetime photography student turned unintentional alt-rock superstar Melissa Auf der Maur’s remarkable new monograph—published to accompany an exhibition set to open at Art Gallery of Ontario next week—has released to immediate acclaim. Not just from fans of Hole or Smashing Pumpkins, with whom Auf der Maur toured and played from 1994–2000, but from critics like The New Yorker’s Kelefa Sanneh, who reviews the book this week. “The drama and chaos of Courtney Love and Hole is now a ’90s legend,” Auf der Maur writes, “but it felt strangely familiar, and familial, to me at the time. I found comfort in that chaos. Despite how new I was to the band, I fit right in. Instinctively, discreetly, I started snapping photos with the palm-sized Nikon point-and-shoot that always dangled from a string around my wrist. My passion for photography had grown in tandem with my obsession with music. I knew I was witnessing a significant moment in modern culture, but with things moving so quick, I captured it to unpack ‘later.’ The camera lens felt like a portal of sorts, like ‘the eye of god’ or a gateway to the future—and a forcefield of protection. The Nikon was smaller than any iPhone is today, and for the rest of the decade it allowed me to document things on tour. Between my discreet presence and my little camera, I became a fly on the wall, taking everything in.”

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