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It\u2019s not easy being a world-famous and unfathomably wealthy rock star these days. Just ask Jack White.<\/p>\n
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The former frontman of The White Stripes and recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee unveiled his first exhibition<\/a> \u2013 \u2018These Thoughts May Disappear\u2019 \u2013 at Damien Hirst\u2019s Newport Street Gallery last week.<\/p>\n The response has been less than favourable. Sometimes, it\u2019s been brutal.<\/p>\n In a scathing one-star review, The Guardian\u2019s Jonathon Jones<\/a>likened his work to \u201ca 12-year-old visiting Tate Modern for the first time\u201d.<\/p>\n The exhibition is no small-scale sideshow, either.<\/p>\n It draws on White\u2019s somewhat legendary background in upholstery and includes installations, furniture and sculptures \u2013 some of them rather large. Its luxurious hardback catalogue also features an interview conducted by superstar curator Hans Ulrich Obrist.<\/p>\n It\u2019s enough to make you wonder whether the artwork would have landed in a prestigious London gallery if the artist weren\u2019t, you know, Jack White.<\/p>\n And yet not everyone is buying into the backlash. Scan Reddit forums and less caustic reviews, and you\u2019ll find plenty praising the exhibition\u2019s playfulness and DIY spirit \u2013 or arguing that White\u2019s creative curiosity should be encouraged.<\/p>\n Love it or hate it, White\u2019s exhibition has reignited a debate that surfaces whenever famous musicians venture into other media: where does the talent end and privilege begin?<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a look at some of music\u2019s biggest names who, like White, have crossed into the world of fine art \u2013 and where they landed in the eyes of professional critics.<\/p>\n The successful crossover: Patti Smith<\/p>\n Few musicians have bridged these disparate worlds more successfully than Patti Smith.<\/p>\n One of rock and roll\u2019s most influential figures, Smith has spent decades building a parallel career as a photographer. Her work has been exhibited widely, including major solo exhibitions at Paris\u2019 Fondation Cartier and MoMA in New York.<\/p>\n Like her music, memoirs and poetry, Smith\u2019s photography is often preoccupied with memory, artistic influence and places imbued with personal meaning, with subjects that range from the belongings of Arthur Rimbaud and Robert Mapplethorpe to landscapes and mementoes picked up during her time on the road.<\/p>\n At the 2024 Venice Biennale, Smith also contributed to the pavilion of the Holy See<\/a> with a series of readings exploring spirituality, nature and human connection.<\/p>\n Rather than inviting questions about celebrity access, like White has, Smith\u2019s artwork has been treated as a natural extension of the ideas that run through her music and writing.<\/p>\n Up for debate: Bob Dylan<\/p>\n Bob Dylan has enjoyed a level of success most people can only dream of \u2013 and not just in music.<\/p>\n One of the greatest songwriters in modern history, Dylan has spent decades exhibiting paintings, drawings and ironwork sculptures at major institutions around the world, including London\u2019s Halcyon Gallery, which has hosted many of his solo exhibitions<\/a>.<\/p>\n Not everyone is convinced of his all-pervading greatness, though.<\/p>\n In 2011, Dylan faced accusations that the paintings in his \u2018Asia Series\u2019 exhibition looked a little too similar to the photographs that inspired them. They also lacked attribution, sparking calls of plagiarism. <\/p>\n He later caught flak when he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016, with critics reviving a familiar refrain: would he have won if he weren\u2019t Bob Dylan?<\/p>\n Even so, his exhibitions continue to draw crowds, making him one of the few musicians whose visual art has become a talking point in its own right.<\/p>\n Yikes: Ed Sheeran<\/p>\n Ed Sheeran\u2019s foray into the art<\/a> world got a reception that might make Jack White feel relieved.<\/p>\n The British singer-songwriter unveiled a series of Pollock-inspired paintings last year, describing them as a creative outlet he pursued between tours and recording sessions.<\/p>\n