Annie Leibovitz’s reputation as a photographer was secured during the 1970s, when she worked for Rolling Stone magazine. She has been creating important images for nearly fty years, but her origins as a young photographer have rarely been exa- mined. This exhibition presents an unprecedented view of the early work. Leibovitz has returned to the original material and selected over 5,000 images that she has installed in a series of spaces that trace her evolution as an artist.

She was still a student at the San Francisco Art Institute when she began working for Rolling Stone. Her primary influences were Henri-Cartier Bresson and Robert Frank and she approached photography from the point of view of reportage. More than at any other time in her life, she was photographing the world around her on a daily basis. The lines had yet to be drawn between journalists and the people they covered, so she had access that would be considered unusual now. And since politics and pop culture had merged, the range of subjects was vast. The exhibi- tion provides a wide-ranging view of the era, which was shaped in the United States by the war in Vietnam, a volatile political landscape, and the rise of a powerful and influential counter-culture.

Leibovitz’s revisiting of this early work can be seen as both an archaeology of the self and a re-examination of history. It marks the beginning of her relationship with the LUMA Foundation, which has acquired her extensive archive. It is a landmark exhibition of LUMA’s Living Archive Program.