“Shepard Fairey” and “Punk Graphics” at Cranbrook | THE DETROIT NEWS


Cranbrook Art Museum in the NewsPress CoverageShepard FaireyToo Fast to Live, Too Young to Die: Punk Graphics, 1976-1986

Call Shepard Fairey the bait. Cranbrook Art Museum Director Andrew Blauvelt wanted to mount a large show on punk's influence on graphic art from the 1970s and 1980s, but worried no youngsters would show up. That's where "Shepard Fairey: Salad Days, 1989-1999" comes in, a small show that takes up one of the galleries at the end of the sprawling, visually dazzling "Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die: Punk Graphics, 1976-1986." Both exhibitions will be up until Oct. 7.Punk performance posters fill one gallery in "Punk Graphics" at Cranbrook Art Museum. (Photo: Michael H. Hodges)"The two shows," Blauvelt said, "are linked at the hip." "Shepard was very influenced by the punk scene," he noted, adding that he needed Fairey "because I wanted to figure out a way to talk to young people" who might not connect with posters and ads for "ancient" groups like the Sex Pistols and Destroy All Monsters. So "Salad Days," which contains a range of ...

Tagged: Graphic Design, punk, Shepard Fairey

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Punk’s Deskilling Spirit Today | PRINT MAG


Cranbrook Art Museum in the NewsPress CoverageToo Fast to Live, Too Young to Die: Punk Graphics, 1976-1986

At the Cranbrook Art Museum’s new exhibition (June 16 – October 7) “Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die: Punk Graphics, 1976-1986,” punk rock’s visual lexicon comes into focus. The retrospective exhibit is the largest of its kind and includes displays featuring posters, zines and everything in between from the massive collection of Andrew Krivine, who has assembled a major worldwide hoard of documentary treasures. The curator, Andrew Blauvelt, has done a masterful exhibit and catalog. In the broadsheet newspaper-format catalog for the show Blauvelt writes:Photo by Debra HolmesAs a student and a practitioner of graphic design during the punk era (and a fan of the music), I knew from firsthand experience how the movement left an indelible impression on the field and vice versa. Reflecting on this moment some forty years later, it became much clearer how punk’s transgressive spirit upended the seemingly dogmatic rules of how graphic design should look ...

Tagged: Andrew Blauvelt, Graphic Design, punk

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Punk Graphics, Shepard Fairey Exhibits to Debut at Cranbrook Art Museum | HOUR DETROIT


Cranbrook Art Museum in the NewsPress CoverageShepard FaireyToo Fast to Live, Too Young to Die: Punk Graphics, 1976-1986

BY EMMA KLUG Galleries will feature DIY-style posters, zines, and album coversPHOTO COURTESY THE GALLERIES AT MOORE, PHILADELPHIA. PHOTO BY JOSEPH HU.Following a series of exhibitions that focused on street art, Cranbrook Art Museum is now attempting to explore the cultural impact of punk and post-punk through its new exhibits Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die: Punk Graphics, 1976-1986 and Shepard Fairey: Salad Days, 1989-1999. Paying homage to the art forms and artists that helped visually define the movement, Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die features appropriated or borrowed images, collage and montage work, as well as DIY zines and flyers. The exhibit will also take a look at how comics, the horror genre, and modern art influenced the creation of punk graphics. “Since its rebellious inception in the 1970s, punk has always exhibited very visual forms of expression,” says the Cranbrook Art Museum Director, Andrew Blauvelt, who curated the exhibitions. “The energy of ...

Tagged: Graphic Design, punk, Shepard Fairey

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Punk rock meets visual art at a pair of shows at Cranbrook | METRO TIMES


Cranbrook Art Museum in the NewsPress CoverageShepard FaireyToo Fast to Live, Too Young to Die: Punk Graphics, 1976-1986

By Lee DeVitoAs Cranbrook Art Museum director Andrew Blauvelt points out, the Latin root of the word "amatuer" is "love" — and that's the spirit behind two upcoming shows at the museum, which delve into the visual world of punk rock ethos. "If you're a graphic designer or nerd like I am, you'll understand punk, because it was based on amateurism, which I'm saying in a positive way," he says. That passion — raw, unbridled — is on full display at the museum. Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die: Punk Graphics, 1976-1986 takes an early look at how the nascent musical genre presented itself, through record sleeves, fliers, posters, clothing, and more.Blauvelt points out that what we now call "culture jamming," or manipulating corporate art, was popularized by Sex Pistols designer Jamie Reid, who in turn was inspired by the Situationists in Europe. "It comes out during this time that they ...

Tagged: Graphic Design, punk

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Punk art shouts from the walls of Cranbrook in new show | OAKLAND PRESS


Cranbrook Art Museum in the NewsPress CoverageShepard FaireyToo Fast to Live, Too Young to Die: Punk Graphics, 1976-1986

By Joseph Szczesny, For Digital First Media Punk music has made loud waves ever since the 1970s. But the punk sensibility also caught on with visual artists, who used a variety of media to stretch the philosophy of punk beyond music into different corners of popular culture, says Andrew Blauvelt, the director of the Cranbrook Art Museum and the curator of the new show making its debut at the museum with a preview party Friday, June 15. It opens to the public Saturday, June 16.Andrew Blauvelt, director of the Cranbrook Art Museum and curator of the new show “Too Fast to Live. Too Young To Die: Punk Graphics, 1976-1986 and Shepard Fairey. Salad Days, 1989-1999” debuting at the museum June 15 & 16, 2018. Photo by Joseph Szczesny/Digital First MediaThe exhibition, “Too Fast to Live. Too Young To Die: Punk Graphics, 1976-1986 and Shepard Fairey. Salad Days, 1989-1999” is actually two shows ...

Tagged: Graphic Design, punk

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How punk rock changed the course of design history | CO. DESIGN


Cranbrook Art Museum in the NewsPress CoverageToo Fast to Live, Too Young to Die: Punk Graphics, 1976-1986

BY KELSEY CAMPBELL-DOLLAGHANImage: PD Rearick/courtesy Cranbrook MuseumPunk, and its associated subcultures, revolutionized design practice. A slew of new shows and books reckons with its impact. Do you remember the first zine someone put in your hands? If you lived through punk’s heydey, or any of the subcultures that reverberated down from its birth to echo into the mid-aughts, you probably came across more than a few of them. Variable in quality, self-printed, gratuitously niche, and often full of self-referential winks, zine culture existed at a precise moment when computers were becoming more common, but social networks hadn’t yet made the notion of communicating with your peers on paper irrelevant. They mixed DIY culture and nascent technology with music and art. You sent away for them, hoarded them, and published your own responses, even if you were a high schooler imagining a culture thousands of miles–and probably a decade or two–away from your ...

Tagged: Graphic Design, punk

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