Explosion! Bay Area Punk

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, artists in Northern California were inspired by the punk movement, an international phenomenon that offered an irreverent, anti-institutional, anti-capitalist, anarchical message. The budding Bay Area punk scene exploded after the legendary British band, the Sex Pistols, played in San Francisco in 1978. Music and art became deeply intertwined as artists formed bands and held pop-up art shows, venues hosted punk concerts, record labels produced albums, and punk played over the airwaves.

Explosion! Bay Area Punk captures the spirit of the era through art, music, and publications from the region. Politically inclined artists such as Randy Hussong and Bruce Glück made bitingly satirical prints and drawings. Selina Wintersteen and Eve Aschheim added their own irreverent takes to figurative and abstract painting. Multi-disciplinary artist Bruce Conner photographed the Mabuhay Gardens, ground zero for punk and new wave music. The works presented here capture the movement’s raw energy and demonstrate that punk is not merely an aesthetic but an enduring attitude that persists today.

Explosion! Bay Area Punk is organized by Marshall N. Price, Chief Curator and Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.

This exhibition is made possible by the Janine & J. Tomilson Hill Family Fund, the J. Horst & Ruth Mary Meyer Fund for the Nasher Museum, the Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger Family Fund for Exhibitions, and the John & Anita Schwarz Family Endowment.

Eve Aschheim, Bruce Conner, J.C. Garrett, Bruce Glück, Randy Hussong, and Selina Wintersteen.