Rock stars are celebrated onstage and behind the scenes in “Amplified” at ARTECHOUSE (photo by ATH Studio)
ROLLING STONE PRESENTS AMPLIFIED
ARTECHOUSE NYC
Chelsea Market
439 West Fifteenth St.
Daily through August 31, $32-$42 (BOGO June 30 – July 7 with code NYCJULY4)
www.artechouse.com
For many years, Rolling Stone magazine was my go-to for music, movies, and politics; I had a subscription for decades, and I pored over every page, every article, every review, every interview, every photo. Somewhere along the line it fell off my radar. So I was excited when I heard about “Rolling Stone Presents: Amplified,” an immersive experience at ARTECHOUSE in Chelsea Market. But I left feeling “meh.”
Audiovisual immersive experiences have been hot in New York City since the pandemic, from dueling van Gogh experiences in 2021 to Limitless AI at AD/BK in 2022, Monet’s Garden in 2023, Dark Matter at Mercer Labs in 2024, and TECHNE: The Vivid Unknown at BAM earlier this year. Featuring no performers, the Insta-friendly productions range from cool to silly to just plain why?
The latest is “Amplified,” which attempts to get to the heart of rock and roll in sixty minutes of photos, videos, colorful designs, and text narrated by Kevin Bacon, leading us through categories dedicated to specific instruments, famous singers, studio work, cars, fashion, concerts, and fandom, among others. More than a thousand photos and two hundred video clips are projected onto three walls and the floor, covering 270º in 18K resolution, bringing us the Who, the Beatles, Miley Cyrus, the Rolling Stones, Patti Smith, Bob Dylan, Beyoncé, the Ramones, Janis Joplin, Bruce Springsteen, Aretha Franklin, David Bowie, Joni Mitchell, Sam Cooke, Karol G, Rico Nasty, Kendrick Lamar, Kiss, Cyndi Lauper, Dr. Dre, Radiohead, Lauryn Hill, AC/DC, Amy Winehouse, Metallica, Siouxsie Sioux, Rage Against the Machine, Ice Spice, Van Halen, Chappell Roan, Jimi Hendrix, et al.
The photographs are by such legends as Mark Seliger, Janette Beckman, Danny Clinch, Lynn Goldsmith, Anton Corbijn, Bob Gruen, Pooneh Ghana, Jim Marshall, and Neal Preston, although they don’t all come from the pages of Rolling Stone. It often feels like a random collection of sights and sounds within each category, flashing by quickly save for longer focuses on a few artists. The same with the projections that bleed off the screens and onto the floor, some exciting, others ho-hum. Make sure to get up and walk around — staring down at the floor will make you gleefully dizzy — and take a cushion and sit in the middle of the projections to get a fuller effect. It probably helps if there’s a big crowd when you go; when I was there, only four other people were in the room, and they remained seated on a couch in the back the entire time.
“Amplified” finally hits its stride in the grand finale, as more than thirteen hundred Rolling Stone covers are unveiled across the space in the span of several minutes, a thrilling barrage that reminded me why the magazine, which was cofounded by Jann Wenner in 1967, has been so essential for so many decades and how iconic and memorable so many of those covers are.
There’s a bar upstairs where you can order beer, soft drinks, and cocktails (Rebel Spirit, Bohemian Fever, Whole Lotta Magic), take a shot of house-made blackberry vodka, and check out a few additional small installations — don’t miss the narrow, vertical screen of hundreds of miniature videos — and you’ll find a wax figure of Jimi Hendrix in the gift shop, on loan from Madame Tussauds. In addition, tickets are two-for-one June 30 to July 7 with the code NYCJULY4.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]