From Carrie Brownsteins NPR blog..
"Exhibition
Below is an excerpt from a
NY Times article about a punk rock auction at Christie's.
CBGB's sticker-encrusted urinal is already museum-worthy, and on Monday more detritus from the era of the Ramones and the Clash hurtled its way into high culture, when Christie's hosted its first auction devoted to punk memorabilia. Vivienne Westwood bondage pants, photographs of Lou Reed and Blondie, badges for the Buzzcocks and concert fliers from clubs like Max's Kansas City went up for bid at the decidedly nonpunk hour of 10 a.m. Estimates were as high as $1,500 for an original "God Save the Queen" Sex Pistols T-shirt and $7,000 for an autographed Ramones test album from 1976. "We've sold punk material before -- a T-shirt here, a poster there," said Simeon Lipman, the head of Christie's pop culture department, at a preview the day before the sale. "This time around I wanted to explore the punk aesthetic. I love the music, and the memorabilia itself is very, very scarce. It has such a wonderful look to it. It's very visceral."
I know what you're thinking--here comes a post about the death (like the third or fourth death) of punk, the commodification of art, and the conflation of music and commerce. Wrong. Okay, I admit, I thought about that angle, but let this post be an exercise in restraint, in devil's advocacy, and in folly.
After all, what is it about the marriage of Christie's and Punk that is so threatening? Perhaps if we could afford to crystallize our youth by means of memorabilia--and not just our own, but iconic, codified images associated with a certain musical era--than the notion of buying back our past wouldn't seem so crass, or odd. I mean, on our own, as music fans of mostly modest means, we've tried to cobble together our own shrines and mini-museums. From ticket stubs to posters torn off telephone polls, from concert t-shirt well past their prime to a pen mark on a ticket stub that may or may not be an autograph, to photos depicting the back of the crowd but also, somewhere in the frame, the neck of a guitar and the arm of the musician you adore. And we've never doubted these keepsakes; we are claiming only what is ours: memories, and a sense of having put our feet down in the right place at the right time, for once.
But what if these possessions could be grander? Appreciated by more than a few old college friends and a mercifully understanding boyfriend or girlfriend or spouse who doesn't ask us to throw them out in the next move. As fans, we elevate music to the highest echelons; we obsess over it, breathe it and live it, why shouldn't we memorialize in a way befitting of our worship?
Thus, if my musical fandom could be expressed professionally, curatorially, and monetarily--well, then here is my wish list (for starters):
Patti Smith's outfit from the
Horses album cover
Ricky Wilson (B-52's) guitar from the "Legal Tender" video
A Pete Townshend jumpsuit
A beer bottle thrown but not entirely destroyed by a member of the Replacements
Bo Diddley's guitar from cover of
Bo Diddley is a Gunslinger album cover
Kim Gordon's broken high heel from the 'This Ain't No Picnic' festival"
Monitor Mix