White will launch his exhibition, These Thoughts May Disappear, at Damien Hirst’s Newport Street Gallery on Friday.
Former White Stripes singer and guitarist Jack White has said he hopes fans will see him from a “different angle” when they visit his first art exhibition in London.
The 50-year-old former upholsterer, who is best known for songs such as Seven Nation Army, Fell In Love With A Girl and Hotel Yorba, will launch his exhibition, These Thoughts May Disappear, at Damien Hirst’s Newport Street Gallery on Friday.
The Detroit-born singer told the Press Association: “If you dig deeper into most artists, you’ll find that they’re creative in several different ways, we just don’t get to see it too often.
“This is definitely one of those moments, because I mean, a lot of people don’t know I work on furniture, or did that when I was younger, or that I’m kind of an amateur carpenter, let alone do they know I do poetry and photography, and I direct short films.
“I mean, a lot of people just don’t know that about me, it’s the curse of whatever they first saw you as.
“If they saw you in The White Stripes, then you’re that guy from The White Stripes for the rest of your life. It’s OK, it’s a high-class problem to have, but sometimes you do have to cleanse the palette and get people to sort of like take a deep breath, and look at you from a different angle.”
While White’s work with The White Stripes recycled the work of bluesmen such as Son House and Robert Johnson, and fused it with that of his Detroit proto-punk predecessors The Stooges and the MC5 to create a fresh sound, his art does similar, taking every day objects and making them otherworldly.
The display, which includes interactive exhibits, sculptures and furniture, came about after he met Hirst when his record label Third Man Records opened its first London store in 2021, an event which was crowned with White performing a Beatles-esque rooftop show on the artist’s nearby balcony.
Asked why London was the right destination for his exhibition, White said: “Damien invited me, so that was the initial first thing, but it really felt fitting, because I thought, ‘well, if I (was) going to do an exhibition, it is good to just get out of your own home town to do it’.
“Because (it’s like) the saying in the Bible, a prophet’s never accepted in his home town, or whatever, people, if they’re used to you being a certain thing, it’s hard to shake up that notion, so sometimes good to leave town.
“And we learned that very quickly in The White Stripes with John Peel (the late BBC Radio 1 broadcaster), when John Peel championed us here in London, it felt like, wow, we were starting all over again, and a new perspective, so this is perfect to come and do this in London.”
White opened his upholstery shop, Third Man Upholstery, in 1996, a year before the formation of The White Stripes, and even formed a band called The Upholsterers with Brian Muldoon, for whom he was an apprentice, with the two hiding 100 records in 100 pieces for Muldoon’s 20th anniversary in the trade.
The singer added: “It’s nice to show pieces in this exhibition that go all the way back to the ’90s, when I was a teenager, and when I had my first upholstery shop and sculpture studio in Detroit, and I can share this with people that this kind of predates a lot of the things they know me for.
“And then all the way up to the present day, I didn’t know also that I would have enough sculptures to fill this, it’s 37,000 square feet, so when we first started talking about this, I thought, ‘well, maybe I’ll just have the first room’.
“But look at it, time passed, and I’ve just been so inspired and worked so hard on this show for years, so many ideas like The Red Tree here (White’s 2015, work which features a red decaying tree) came about.”
Along with The White Stripes, who were made up of White and drummer Meg White and who broke up in 2011, the guitarist is also known for music with the bands The Raconteurs, who released hits such as Steady As She Goes and The Dead Weather, who also feature The Kills frontwoman Alison Mosshart.
White launched his solo career in 2012 with the album Blunderbuss, and has gone on to release six studio albums, with the most recent being 2024’s No Name. In April, he released two new songs in G.O.D. And The Broken Ribs and Derecho Demonico.
These Thoughts May Disappear will run until September 13 and admission is free.
