I was a primary school punk (part 2)

The pride of Johnson's collection is a bunch of flyers, made by hands anonymous that 'epitomizes the immediacy and DIY aesthetic of punk.' Of course, he's got stuff by the names that would later become famous - Jamie Reid, who did the design for the Sex Pistols, Raymond Pettibone who cut his teeth on covers for Black Flag and Sonic Youth, before getting exhibitions in his own right... it's interesting that the collection has copies of Pettibone's flyers, not the original artwork. Does this reflect on Walter Benjamin's belief that, in an age of mass production, the aura of an art object has less worth? Or is it that this exhibition is less an art than museum gallery?

Krivine continues with the official line that punk had 'aggression, humor, the lack of hypocrisy and pretense—and the notion that there is no hierarchy we must pay tribute to, if you want to be in a band and make music.' This is more nonsense. Punk replaced one hierarchical set of values - those of the hippy bands that Johnson despised. As for hypocrisy, punk hardly evolved gender stereotyping (it is not until riot grrl that the issue of punk's hypocrisy towards feminism was examined), and when Krivine and Johnson pay respect to The Cramps, they are celebrating (an admittedly brilliant) band who had a rare sense of the theatrical. Unless I am very mistaken, they weren't really Human Flies. 

Teal Triggs, in Scissors and Glue, makes a clear connection between the punk aesthetic and the actions of the Situationist International (since Malcolm McClaren was well into all that, it is unsurprising that there is a lineage... and his attitude towards The Sex Pistols and subsequent bands was always more cynical, pretentious and witty than the bands themselves would like to admit). Not only does this suggest that punk was less of an innovation than it tries to suggest, but that it was defined, at least in the UK, by a fashion designer trying to flog outfits with a slogan of 'cash for chaos.'

Scissors and Glue: Punk Fanzines and the Creation of a DIY Aesthetic

Teal Triggs

Journal of Design History, Vol. 19, No. 1, Do It Yourself: Democracy and Design (Spring, 2006), pp. 69-83

Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of Design History Society

Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3838674