Gervaise Soeurouge was a photographer specializing in live music photography with an emphasis on punk and underground music scenes. Proficient in JVC video technology, Soeurouge’s photographs of live performance appear as storyboards filled with movement, dynamic angles, and narrative content. Born in Alexandria, LA in 1944, Soeurouge later lived in New York City, Montreal (where she received her undergraduate degree in communications at Concordia University), England, Spain, and New Orleans. In the mid-to-late 1970s Downtown music scene of New York City, she was part of a new generation of female photographers documenting this unique realm and she traveled frequently to follow that beat for many years. Soeurouge’s distinct portfolio of artists, particularly from the mid 1970s to the mid-80s includes The Sex Pistols, CRASS, The Specials, The Slits, Lene Lovich, Bauhaus, David Johansen, Johnny Thunders, Television, The Jam, Jimmy Pursey, Gang of Four, Buzzcocks, Mose Allison, Sham 69, The Clash, Jimmy Pursey; mainstream artists such as Thin Lizzy, Willie Nelson, Frank Zappa, Yoko Ono, among many others. In 1978, she photographed the notorious Sex Pistols’ performance at Baton Rouge music club Kingfish. This event is immortalized in her archives as negative sheets, which were later reproduced in “memorial” booklets that art and music luminaries of Downtown New York such as Gracie Mansion, Howie (Pyro, of The Blessed) were invited to scribble and re-style in a unique collaboration of Pop Art and Punk aesthetics. Ultimately, Soeurouge’s peripatetic lifestyle was later eclipsed by Alzheimer’s Disease as she spent the last three years of her life in her New Orleans home fully dependent on musician husband Edi Chin, various caregivers, and empathetic neighbors until her death in 2022.
Not Fade Away: Gervaise Soeurouge + The Louisiana Punk Archive is a project-in-development inspired directly by the cultural storytelling of her photographs and the multifaceted Punk movements of Louisiana that continue to evolve, shape-shift, give voice to, and inspire. An exhibition of Soeurouge’s archives, large-scale reprints of her work, and a video installation will accompanied by a call to community participation. The goal is to create a digital archive of Souerouge’s work and invite members of Louisiana Punk to contribute digital files of photos, flyers, and album art through community scanning dates with an option to upload files remotely. In this way, Gervaise Sourouge’s trailblazing documentation lives on, in community with others over time and space for next generations to enjoy. This project is in progress. We thank the estate of Gervaise Soeurouge and her close friends for the support and greenlight for this project.
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Self Portrait, Gervaise Soeurouge, date unknown, used with permission of the estate
