Jack White’s panned exhibition: Which musicians found success in fine art?

It’s not easy being a world-famous and unfathomably wealthy rock star these days. Just ask Jack White.

The former frontman of The White Stripes and recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee unveiled his first exhibition – ‘These Thoughts May Disappear’ – at Damien Hirst’s Newport Street Gallery last week.

The response has been less than favourable. Sometimes, it’s been brutal.

In a scathing one-star review, The Guardian’s Jonathon Joneslikened his work to “a 12-year-old visiting Tate Modern for the first time”.

The exhibition is no small-scale sideshow, either.

It draws on White’s somewhat legendary background in upholstery and includes installations, furniture and sculptures – some of them rather large. Its luxurious hardback catalogue also features an interview conducted by superstar curator Hans Ulrich Obrist.

It’s enough to make you wonder whether the artwork would have landed in a prestigious London gallery if the artist weren’t, you know, Jack White.

And yet not everyone is buying into the backlash. Scan Reddit forums and less caustic reviews, and you’ll find plenty praising the exhibition’s playfulness and DIY spirit – or arguing that White’s creative curiosity should be encouraged.

Love it or hate it, White’s exhibition has reignited a debate that surfaces whenever famous musicians venture into other media: where does the talent end and privilege begin?

Here’s a look at some of music’s biggest names who, like White, have crossed into the world of fine art – and where they landed in the eyes of professional critics.

The successful crossover: Patti Smith

Few musicians have bridged these disparate worlds more successfully than Patti Smith.

One of rock and roll’s 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’ Fondation Cartier and MoMA in New York.

Like her music, memoirs and poetry, Smith’s 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.

At the 2024 Venice Biennale, Smith also contributed to the pavilion of the Holy See with a series of readings exploring spirituality, nature and human connection.

Rather than inviting questions about celebrity access, like White has, Smith’s artwork has been treated as a natural extension of the ideas that run through her music and writing.

Up for debate: Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan has enjoyed a level of success most people can only dream of – and not just in music.

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’s Halcyon Gallery, which has hosted many of his solo exhibitions.

Not everyone is convinced of his all-pervading greatness, though.

In 2011, Dylan faced accusations that the paintings in his ‘Asia Series’ exhibition looked a little too similar to the photographs that inspired them. They also lacked attribution, sparking calls of plagiarism.

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’t Bob Dylan?

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.

Yikes: Ed Sheeran

Ed Sheeran’s foray into the art world got a reception that might make Jack White feel relieved.

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.

Freelance critic Nigel Ip wrote that the ‘Cosmic Carpark Paintings’ “weren’t as boring as I thought they would be” – one of the few compliments Sheeran received.

Also reviewing the exhibition for The Guardian, Jonathan Jones dismissed the work as “a slick con job”, arguing that Sheeran’s celebrity had transformed otherwise amateur experimentation into a gallery event. Others were blunter, saying that Sheeran had merely ripped off Jackson Pollock.

On the bright side, the sales of his pieces later raised funds for grassroots music organisations.

Perhaps White’s critics would be a little more forgiving if his exhibition ended the same way.