London. The exhibition, which shows the wide variety of stage outfits worn by one of the most successful all-female groups of all time, also provides plenty of socio-historical background on the phenomenon that was »The Supremes.«
This starts with the less-than-glamorous early days of the three schoolgirls from Detroit, which was back then a prospering industrial metropolis where Berry Gordy was in the process of transferring the assembly-line principle that powered the automotive industry onto his Motown Records.
Success was not a result of mere record sales; instead, the quality of the music and its presentation was dictated by a majority of the company’s staff, who gathered together every Monday morning after listening to the contenders to collectively decide on their favorites among what would be considered today unimaginably expensive analogue productions.
To make sure that even the least little detail wouldn’t detract from the shining prospects of the company’s protégées, there was an Artist Development Program, whose demanding and charismatic director, Maxine Powell, indoctrinated the nascent stars into the three pillars of show business: »image, look, style.« An interview with Powell, now 93, is one of the most startling documents in this exhibition, causing the viewer to unwittingly glance downward to make sure there is no street dirt clinging to his own shoes. With songs written by the producer team Holland-Dozier-Holland, the Motown studio band, deft choreography by Cholly Atkins, dazzling outfits by Bob Mackie and Michael Travis, and observing Maxine Powell’s rules of etiquette while emphasizing their own femininity, Florence Ballard, Diana Ross and Mary Wilson set out to storm the charts with an as yet unparalleled five hits in a row – and this at a time when makeup made for Afro-American women was still a far-off dream.
To what extent race segregation still dominated people’s everyday lives in the 1960s, only gradually bowing to the pressure of the emerging civil rights movement – at least on the level of legal theory – can be divined from the exhibition’s supplementary chronological tables and video displays, where we can hear for example the famous introductory words of Martin Luther King’s groundbreaking speech.
The steady stream of TV appearances by the Supremes, who were guests 17 times on the »Ed Sullivan Show« alone, not only had a high entertainment factor, but also a symbolic value, which didn’t fail to have an encouraging effect on viewers.
After millions and millions of records had been sold all over the world, and a brand of bread had even been dedicated to the Supremes, the original ensemble showed the first signs of deterioration. Ballard was replaced, paid off and died after a few years, impoverished. Diana Ross launched a solo career that still continues today (her last album, »I Love You,« came out in 2006). The only member of the original group to tough it out through all the subsequent and much less glorious »reincarnations« was Mary Wilson, who at least didn’t have to suffer any constraints with regard to sartorial splendor.
The fact that the exhibition was mounted in conjunction with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum is only noticeable in minor details. For those interested in analyzing the art discourse, for example, the hanging or placement of the glass display cases does not exactly offer any bonus knowledge. Often, in the case of shows that are like this one conceived by ambitious pop-history chronologists, it helps to apply the simple trick of imagining that all of this is yet to come, that it will take place some time in the future. Or, we can conclude as Louis Althusser/Etienne Balibar did (»Lire le Capital,« Paris Maspero 1971): »As modality of lived experience, temporality is an existential phenomenon, brought forth by the production method itself. Every method of production has its own temporal system. Indeed, the structures of temporality depend on those of history, rather than history following the structures of time. The temporality structures and their specific differences are produced in the process by which the concept of history is formed.« In the language of the Supremes: Stop in the name of love, before you break my heart.
Translated by Jennifer Taylor-Gaida