Re: If in Chicago in the near future

go to the Museum of Contemporary Art and check out SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL, a retrospective of the influence of rock on art and vice versa. A lot of it, like a lot of contemporary art, is just con men getting away with shit, but there's some definite good stuff - some original Robert Longo drawings, some Warhol Velvets-related stuff, some Peter Saville, etc.

Longo was responsible for one of my favorite album covers of all time - Glenn Branca's THE ASCENSION and one of my least favorite - the Replacements' TIM. Good lord, the cover for TIM is ugly.

Plus, admission is free now through the first week of November or so. And when I was there Saturday there was a nice lady in the lobby handing out free fou-fou, la-ti-da cupcakes from one of those oh-so delightful cupcakeries that are all the rage these days amongst people too chi-chi to eat a Little Debbie.



Post Edited (10-03-07 07:46)

Thread coming on ... stand by.

Funny you should mention this - I was in the LA Museum of Modern Art store just the other day and saw a book for sale called something like "Art in the Punk Era" and I thought: cool! Winston Smith (the brilliant DKs/Alt Tentacles collagist)? Gary Panter? Photocopied flyers? Er, no. Mostly the usual gallery favorites from the period like Keith Haring, Cindy Sherman, etc are covered - it's called Art from the Punk ERA, after all, not actual punk art. Well, there were a few Raymond Pettibone drawings, but mainly a wasted oppurtunity. It made me realize - why ISN'T there a comprehensive punk art book? Every other corner of punk has been anthologized...



Post Edited (10-03-07 16:07)

Yeah, there was a lot of stuff in this exhibit that I wondered what the connection was. But it was a decent enough art show.

mmmmm cupcakes


I think it was this book that mostly dealt with flyers/album covers.

An inclusive book would have to be many volumes. I'd think getting that much album cover art would be legally problematic.
Haven't there been a few that focus on a particular scene?



Post Edited (10-03-07 15:33)

- individual artists have had their own books, like the ones I mentioned, and photgraphers, e.g. F-Stop Fitzgerald's SanFran scene, Gary Leonard's LA scene collections.

- This book collects photocopied flyers

- then there's The Album Cover Art of Punk

You're right, "comprehensive" probably wouldn't be possible in a single volume. One would think, however, that there could be an introductory volume like those genre coffee-table books on Pop, surrealism, etc. Granted, you can't get too in-depth but at least you can get all the big names in one place. After all, buying all the above books is gonna bankrupt all but the most-monied of music fans.