It’s fitting that Chris Bors is both an artist and an art critic; his most recent set of paintings display both a broad knowledge of cultural history and the rare ability to synthesize those various influences into a compelling and coherent whole. Appropriating the kind of hardcore punk band logos you might have scribbled on your notebooks back in high school, Bors adds images that range from children’s cartoon characters to dystopic, sci-fi illustrations and finishes off his posters with the colored drips of mid-century abstraction. “The juxtaposition of these elements resembles the compositions of and mimics the tactics used in political messaging,” Bors writes. “The work also plays on the confrontation of violence and solidarity as expressed in a music genre that has roots based on a struggle for social justice.” See some of our favorite Bors pieces after the jump, and then visit his website to check out more of his work.
It seems there have been countless documentaries about punk, from the earliest days in New York and England to contemporary scenes around the world. What distinguishes 1-2 FU, an hour-long 2004 BBC production we discovered thanks to Dangerous Minds, is its intentionally personal bent. Although the film definitely provides a history of punk, it views the movement through the eyes of a true punk fanatic — British radio and TV host Jonathan Ross. The doc, which includes interviews with everyone from Vivienne Westwood to OG punk zinesters, makes perfect lunch-hour viewing. You can watch it after the jump.
The punk and post-punk movements of the late ’70s and early ’80s were times of great experimentation — and the revolution reverberated beyond music to the visual arts and design, too. Just as the hippie sounds of the ’60s spawned psychedelic gig posters, bands like the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, Blondie, and Joy Division ushered in a new era for graphic design. From a cold, gridded, red-and-black Joy Division poster to a Buzzcocks ad featuring a woman with an iron for a head and mouths for nipples, Rude and Reckless: Punk/Post-Punk Graphics, 1976-82 showcases the wild, witty, and sometimes even beautiful art of underground music. The exhibition is on view at Steven Kasher Gallery in New York through August 19th. Click through for a gallery of our favorite pieces, then visit the gallery’s website to see more.
From revolutionary politics to game-changing street style, punk and hip hop have a lot in common. Although one was headquartered way uptown and the other made its home downtown (and across the pond in London), both grew out of working-class neighborhoods in the last quarter of the 20th century. Now, punk and hip hop’s founders are among music’s most recognizable and iconoclastic icons.
Still, we rarely see these two kindred forms juxtaposed. That’s one reason we’re so excited about Catch the Beat: The Roots of Punk & Hip Hop, a show that brings together the work of Janette Beckman and David Corio, photographers who published photos of both scenes in British music papers throughout the ’80s and beyond. Another reason we can’t to check it out? The images in the preview gallery after the jump, which feature everyone from Public Enemy and Run DMC to the Ramones and Ari Up of the Slits, are quite simply some of the best music photos we’ve ever seen. The show opens March 10 at New York’s Morrison Hotel Gallery. Click over to Flavorpill for more info on visiting.
It’s kind of morbid how excited we were to come across a love note from Sid Vicious to Nancy Spungen on The Daily What — especially when you factor in that just a few months after listing off his girlfriend’s best qualities, Vicious was accused of stabbing her to death, but died of a heroin overdose before standing trial. (A suicide note found in the pocket of his jacket read: “We had a death pact, and I have to keep my half of the bargain. Please bury me next to my baby in my leather jacket, jeans and motorcycle boots. Goodbye.”) Check out the letter from happier times after the jump, but be warned: reason #9 is NSFW.
Did you know that punk music is a subgenre of New Wave? Or that, after the Sex Pistols bit the dust, the Clash were the only punk band left standing? Did you realize that “the punks didn’t catch on in America,” or that they had something to do with the deadly stampede at a Who concert? Don’t worry — those aren’t facts. But they were reported on 20/20 back in 1979, when the long-running TV newsmagazine decided to profile it. Hey, if you sit through the first three-and-a-half minutes of misinformation, you get to watch a whole minute of the Talking Heads performing “Psycho Killer”!
Veteran British music impresario Don Letts’ feature-length punk documentary explores the philosophy of the subculture, from Elvis Presley to the Stooges, Sex Pistols, and the Clash.
Originally released at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2005, the out-of-print film is now back on DVD, featuring cameos from legends such as Jello Biafra, Chryssie Hynde, Jim Jarmusch, David Johansen, Henry Rollins, and Siouxsie Sioux. The two-disc set offers over 90 minutes of bonus material, including short pieces about the fashion, sounds, and spirit of the punk movement.
New York Times fashion critic Cathy Horyn is sick of punk. She is bored with hearing Sid Vicious’s version of “My Way” — a painfully appropriate cover that, in our opinion, never gets old. If she never had to see another safety pin, it would be too soon. The take-home, listeners of loud, snotty music, is that “punk is now a style cliché.” And the idea of Balmain putting a high-fashion price tag on a leather jacket covered in spikes is, frankly, “a joke — and not even a very clever one.” Got that, 15-year-old Johnny, with your ripped jeans and your mohawk?
For our part, we enjoyed the Balmain collection Horyn describes, which manages to balance punk and fashion in a fun, witty way. (In fact, there’s a pair of black-and-silver striped pants in there that we’ll probably dream about tonight.) And considering that designers have played a major part in the punk movement since its inception, we find it both historically ignorant and totally unimaginative to declare them antithetical to one another. What’s more, counterculture has provided inspiration for haute couture for as long as both have existed. After the jump, we review seven movements that have been co-opted, often to great effect, by high fashion.
Christopher Walken played him in the movie Basquiat, but the creative life of Marc H. Miller transcends that singular moment via his website, 98 Bowery.
Landing a loft on NYC’s infamous Bowery in the late ’60s, Miller blossomed as an artist, curator, journalist, and publisher. After organizing the very first punk art exhibition in 1978, he migrated to Amsterdam and shot Polaroid portraits in the red-light district, before returning to the Bowery to make videos about artists, write a column for the East Village Eye, and organize museum shows — a lifestyle that’s now amusingly and thoroughly documented online.
Made in 1986 by X’s Exene Cervenka and director Modi Frank, Bad Day is a 20-minute silent punk-western with a cameo by young Kevin Costner as a town drunk.
The black-and-white modern melodrama features title cards instead of spoken dialogue, and a guitar-driven soundtrack by Grammy-winning singer/songwriter Dave Alvin and D.J. Bonebrake. The rare film has finally been made available online on a pay-what-you-can basis — with partial proceeds going toward helping victims on the Gulf Coast.
