John Hansard Gallery is excited to present So This Is Real Life; punk-post-punk imagining 1975-1985. Curated with writer Philip Hoare, the exhibition looks at the impact of the punk and post-punk period of the 70s and 80s, and its present-day reverberations.
Far from being a metropolitan sensation, restricted to the messed-up streets of London, punk spread throughout the UK, reaching beyond nationalism, and beyond commercial control. It manifested itself in Sheffield, Bristol, Falmouth, Cardiff, Glasgow, Brighton, Edinburgh, Manchester, Liverpool, Norwich, Southampton. In each place creating a culture of its own, as if some ancient tribes were being awoken by the loud of tinny amps and photocopying machines. Dressed in the garb of the recently-dead retrieved from jumble sales, it was a culture powered by power cuts, race riots and amphetamine.
Independent record labels created discrete identities to make art and noise. From Rough Trade in West London to Fast in Edinburgh, from Factory in Manchester to Postcard in Glasgow, these pockets of insurrection fed the need to make music beyond the decrepit conglomerates and jaded A&R men snorting cocaine. Black music, reggae and ska, was the lubricant of the dance. As these elements knitted together and fell apart (in reaction to how the greater industrial and political disruptions of the 70s fed into the gender and racial issues of the 80s), punk evolved and matured into a more insidious and diverse phase. In the way that non-fiction is defined by what it is not, so post-punk is named, by definition, after the fact. But arguably, the aftermath of punk’s explosion is more culturally interesting than that first eruption of rebellion. The outrage of punk had simmered down, taken root and produced stranger things.
So This Is Real Life analyses the still vibrating traces of these events from an analogue age. Record sleeves, posters, badges, ephemera, fanzines and clothing all coalesce; rescued from sooty attics, fetched out of suitcases and wardrobes, or from dubious corners under beds. Released, blinking into the light, and let to crawl like insects up and down the walls
Artists, performers, designers, publishers and labels represented include PiL, Magazine, Joy Division, The Raincoats, New Hormones, The Birthday Party, Scritti Politti, Ludus, Westwood/Mclaren, Buzzcocks, Postcard Records, Peter Saville, Industrial Records, Malcolm Garret, David Band, Derek Jarman, Fast Records, A Certain Ratio, Les Disques du Crepuscule, Sniffin’ Glue, Breakdown, The Durutti Column and Catholic Girls.
A specially commissioned, billboard-scale photomontage work by Linder – inspired by Raphael and the footballer Miguel Azeez – will be installed as part of the exhibition, which will also feature archive works by Linder from the mid-1970s, including evocative images from the celebrated Manchester gay/drag club, Dickens, and her famous collage work for the Buzzcocks’ Orgasm Addict record sleeve.