Paper Scissors ROCK
Curator: Jacob McMurray
Exhibition Design: Jacob McMurray
Venue:
Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, OR, October 3 - November 30, 2002
Experience Music Project, Seattle, WA, May - September 2003
Synopsis:
Paper Scissors ROCK: 25 Years of Northwest Punk Poster Design explores the last 25 years of music-related poster art from the Pacific Northwest. During the late-1970s, punk rock reverberated up and down the I-5 corridor as raw, young bands hot-wired an underground touring circuit. These groups, dirt-poor and starved for attention, developed an unschooled yet ferocious style of self-promotion based around low-tech, Xeroxed posters stapled onto telephone poles. The crude and immediate street-factor of punk posters later evolved, drawing inspiration from cheesy horror movies, hot-rod culture, and comics, establishing a look for the international Grunge phenomenon. Paper Scissors ROCK: 25 Years of Northwest Punk Poster Design details the entire story of this graphical form—from its origins in tiny, beer-soaked dives through to the cultural main stage.
I conceived of this show while living in Portland, OR, and taking a few graphic design classes at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. I initially was going to focus the exhibition solely on Art Chantry, Mike King, and Jeff Kleinsmith -- three designers who I think have made the largest impression on rock-related graphic design in the Pacific Northwest, but I ended up widening the scope to encompass punk-influence graphic design in the NW from 1975 to the present (which at that point was 2002).
Dave Rosencrans, an EMP curator, championed the exhibition and convinced EMP to underwrite it, which allowed me greater freedom with framing and exhibitry. Besides 70+ amazing framed posters, I came up with the idea of fake "telephone pole" structures, onto which I could paste and staple photocopies of additional xeroxed flyers and posters from EMP's extensive poster collection. After showing at PNCA, the exhibition was shown in similar form at EMP.
Along with the main exhibition, large installations of posters by artists Mike King and the Ames Bros. were incorporated.
Exhibition Design: Jacob McMurray
Venue:
Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, OR, October 3 - November 30, 2002
Experience Music Project, Seattle, WA, May - September 2003
Synopsis:
Paper Scissors ROCK: 25 Years of Northwest Punk Poster Design explores the last 25 years of music-related poster art from the Pacific Northwest. During the late-1970s, punk rock reverberated up and down the I-5 corridor as raw, young bands hot-wired an underground touring circuit. These groups, dirt-poor and starved for attention, developed an unschooled yet ferocious style of self-promotion based around low-tech, Xeroxed posters stapled onto telephone poles. The crude and immediate street-factor of punk posters later evolved, drawing inspiration from cheesy horror movies, hot-rod culture, and comics, establishing a look for the international Grunge phenomenon. Paper Scissors ROCK: 25 Years of Northwest Punk Poster Design details the entire story of this graphical form—from its origins in tiny, beer-soaked dives through to the cultural main stage.
I conceived of this show while living in Portland, OR, and taking a few graphic design classes at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. I initially was going to focus the exhibition solely on Art Chantry, Mike King, and Jeff Kleinsmith -- three designers who I think have made the largest impression on rock-related graphic design in the Pacific Northwest, but I ended up widening the scope to encompass punk-influence graphic design in the NW from 1975 to the present (which at that point was 2002).
Dave Rosencrans, an EMP curator, championed the exhibition and convinced EMP to underwrite it, which allowed me greater freedom with framing and exhibitry. Besides 70+ amazing framed posters, I came up with the idea of fake "telephone pole" structures, onto which I could paste and staple photocopies of additional xeroxed flyers and posters from EMP's extensive poster collection. After showing at PNCA, the exhibition was shown in similar form at EMP.
Along with the main exhibition, large installations of posters by artists Mike King and the Ames Bros. were incorporated.