Billy Name – The Silver Age

Back in October, after having recently moved to a new place in London, weekends (and let’s face it, any weekday evening too) were all about exploring further what this buzzing city has to offer. Serena Morton II Gallery was on my to-go places, so on an unusually sunny Saturday, I grabbed the camera and headed to Notting Hill along with a good friend of mine and the founder of Doubt magazine, Lori.

Serena Morton II opened in late September 2015. It’s co-curated by Serena Morton, one of the first London curators of pop-up exhibitions, and David Hill, one of UK’s finest Cultural Custodians.

The new gallery opened with an exhibition featuring the work of American photographer Billy Name, best known as archivist of life in Andy Warhol’s New York studio (The Factory). After a brief romance with Warhol, the lighting designer became the studio’s in-house photographer between 1964 and 1970, documenting what would become a place symbolic with the pop era.

Billy’s black and white photographs capture the vibe of the Factory with a mix of staged and intimate moments of Warhol’s muses and the artist himself. One of my favourite photographs is an image of the young actress, fashion model and one of Andy Warhol’s superstars, Edie Sedgwick caught lost in thought, looking timelessly stylish. Another is a photograph of actress and model Susan Bottomly caught in action, her signature statement earrings trying to move the focus away from Susan’s heavily contrasted monochrome features.

For a relatively small exhibition The Silver Age was a wonderful glimpse of the pop life era, New York’s creative elite from the 60s and the life of one of the most significant artists of the 20th century.

Those who couldn’t make it to the gallery on time but would love to see these and more of Name’s work from The Factory can get their hands on his biography Billy Name: The Silver Age.

On a different, but equally exciting note, Serena Morton II has now unveiled its second exhibition – Bill Bernstein’s Disco – a selection of photographs showing New York’s disco scene in the late 70s.