Collection: Charles Peterson's Nirvana: On Photography and Performance

October 5, 2024 - August 31, 2025

Synonymous with the sounds, styles, movement, and attitude known as “grunge,” Peterson’s artful and organic photographs hold the spirit of the 90s Northwest music scene in a visceral, timeless present. This first museum exhibition on the West Coast dedicated to Peterson’s work is based on a book of the same name. Both reflect years of editing to arrive at a selection of both iconic and never-before-seen photographs.

In this exhibition, Michelle Dunn Marsh of Minor Matters merges a selection of Peterson’s gelatin-silver and pigment prints with photographs, sculpture and video by six artists including Sylvia Plachy, Nicholas Galanin, Jeffry Mitchell, and Peterson’s photography professor, Paul Berger, among others to draw out visual and contextual nuances of Peterson’s photographs.