Chris Cuffaro x SXSW
South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas will take place from March 13 to March 21, 2027, with the main interactive, film, and music tracks running from March 15 to March 21. You can book badges and check out updates directly on the Official SXSW Website. [1, 2, 3]
Nirvana
Nirvana emerged from the Pacific Northwest underground and became one of the defining bands of the early 1990s. Chris Cuffaro first photographed the band in March 1991, in what he describes as the first official shoot with Dave Grohl and a session used for Nevermind publicity. The photographs capture Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic and Grohl at a pivotal point, just before their music moved from the alternative scene into global popular culture. For Cuffaro, the session also marked the beginning of a close connection with the Seattle music scene and a period in which he documented many of its most important artists.
Pearl jam
Pearl Jam became central to the Seattle music movement of the early 1990s, combining a powerful live presence with songwriting that connected with an international audience. Cuffaro photographed the band during its formative 1991–1992 period, toured with them, and developed a friendship with Eddie Vedder. He also directed the original black-and-white video for “Jeremy,” an early interpretation that was ultimately not used for the song’s commercial release. His Pearl Jam archive has since become an important part of Greatest Hits, including dedicated exhibitions in Los Angeles and the 2024 Pearl Jam | Alive 1991–1992 exhibitions in Melbourne and Sydney.
Alice In Chains
Alice in Chains were part of the group of Seattle artists Cuffaro photographed as his relationship with the city’s music scene developed in the early 1990s. Their darker visual and musical identity gave them a distinctive place within a period that changed the direction of rock music internationally. Cuffaro’s Alice in Chains photography sits alongside his work with Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Mudhoney and Chris Cornell, collectively documenting the people behind a significant cultural moment. The work was later brought together as part of his Greatest Hits: Grunge exhibition in Sydney in 2019.
Chris Cuffaro | Greatest Hits
Chris Cuffaro is an American photographer, director and creator whose career spans more than five decades. Best known for his music photography, Cuffaro has photographed artists including Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, George Michael, George Harrison, INXS, Jane’s Addiction, Iggy Pop and Red Hot Chili Peppers. His work documents both major cultural moments and the people behind them, often capturing artists at important stages in their careers.
Greatest Hits brings this archive together as an evolving multimedia project built around photography, music, personal stories, exhibitions, workshops and digital experiences. Rather than presenting the photographs only as historical objects, the project uses Cuffaro’s archive and first-hand experience to explore how music photography is created, how relationships with artists develop, and how individual images become part of cultural memory.
The next stage is to develop new creative and production resources at Te Puna Creative Hub in New Zealand. The Hub will provide a base for developing exhibition content, workshops, digital assets and new ways of presenting material from the archive. It will also support the preparation and testing of resources that can travel with the project.
Education is an important part of this development. Cuffaro’s workshop program draws directly on more than 50 years of professional practice, covering the complete photographic process from ideas and pre-production through to working with artists, shooting, post-production, image rights and the business of photography. The objective is practical: to share experience with photographers and creators and help them understand both the creative and professional demands of working in music and entertainment.
From New Zealand, the proposed program will travel to Sydney and Melbourne, building on Cuffaro’s established exhibition history in Australia. Previous Australian projects have included Greatest Hits: Grunge, Greatest Hits: Australia, Pearl Jam | Alive 1991–1992 and Greatest Hits: Proof Sheets. These projects provide a foundation for developing a touring format that combines an exhibition with artist talks, workshops and supporting digital content.
The longer-term objective is to take the developed exhibition and workshop format to SXSW, presenting Greatest Hits to an international audience across music, photography, film and technology. The New Zealand, Sydney and Melbourne stages provide an opportunity to develop and refine the format before that international presentation.
This approach positions Te Puna Creative Hub as the development base, Australia as the next stage of public presentation, and SXSW as a platform for international exposure. At its center remains Cuffaro’s photography and a simple idea: use an extraordinary archive not only to look back at music history, but to create new resources that photographers, artists and audiences can learn from and experience together.