Melissa Auf der Maur is letting it all hang out. In March, Montreal’s prodigal rock daughter released her memoir Even the Good Girls Will Cry, revisiting her coming of age in Montreal and meteoric rise to grunge-rock royalty during the 1990s as a member of Courtney Love’s band Hole, topped off by a stint in the Smashing Pumpkins. Now she’s putting the icing on the cake.
Auf der Maur’s exhibition My ’90s Rock Photographs opens to the public this week at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) and runs until June 6, 2027. It is accompanied by a vibrant photo book of the same name and a new album, Bass Womb Room, culled from atmospheric demos she made while on tour with Hole back in the day, which accompanies an installation at the end of the AGO show. It’s a lot.
“It feels wild,” Auf der Maur said recently. “It feels kaleidoscopic, like I’m inside out. In some ways, it’s odd to share so much. It is vulnerable. I’m aware that I have put in motion this deep, personal exposé.