Visual Vitriol: A Punk Poster Exhibition
poster by Beau Eaton
The Art Gallery at Umpqua Community College
1140 Umpqua College Road,
Roseburg, OR 97470
541.440.4692
Hours: 8 – 5:00, M – F
November 3 – December 10, 2008
University of Oregon Folklore graduate student and instructor David Ensminger, who has just finished a book on punk art and culture, will be curating an extensive collection of punk poster and flyers (known variously as urban folk art, instant Xerox art, and street style vernacular expressions) in the Art Gallery at Umpqua Community College, in Roseburg. The exhibition content focuses on Do-It-Yourself, often handmade posters that will survey over 30 years of subculture history. Featuring a broad range of work from North America, Europe, and Asia, the exhibition will also focus on the often ignored contributions of women, gays and lesbians, and people of color in punk. The exhibition will also feature potent photography and ephemera culled from punk archives and a looped, original documentary video made by Ensminger. Titled “Chronicles from the Zero Hour: The Punk Legacy,” the film features interviews with members of MDC, Chumbawamba, Strike Anywhere, Lifetime/Paint it Black, The Epoxies, Dag Nasty, and contains live footage of TSOL and the Circle Jerks. A short video lecture outlining the important issues of punk art will also be shown.
We are pleased to announce this exhibition includes new additions to the collection, including posters designed by Zak Kaplan, who works for the infamous New Jersey based punk label Chunksaah Records (Bouncing Souls…) and Rogue State Design. See his Hot Water Music piece below.
New friend and ally Helge Schreiber, editor of Plastic Bomb zine in Germany, has also provided a small bounty of European hardcore punk flyers from the 1980s, including the band Negazione from Italy, found below.
In addition, we’d like to thank designer Beau Eaton for providing us with the show promotional poster found at the beginning of this page. He is also designing postcards and one-of-a-kind, hand-printed, wood block type posters to be raffled off during the opening of the show, on November 3rd.
Similar exhibitions have been shown in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in several Oregon spaces (Portland, Salem, Eugene, and Monmouth) and across Western Europe (both England and the continent), even Budapest and Bangkok. For an overview of the collection, please visit: http://www.visualvitriol.wordpress.com.
Ensminger hopes to catalog these items in a permanent punk art and culture archive. This month, he is presenting lectures on the material in the states of Washington and Kentucky.
Hard copy press releases and material will be forthcoming.
For more information, please contact:
David Ensminger
densming@uoregon.edu
541-346-7339
Susan Rochester
Gallery Director
Susan.Rochester@umpqua.edu
541.440.4692
The Center for Punk Arts 