Photo by Celeste Carroll
'Gig's Up: 50 Years of Punk Poster Art' exhibition
Visitors enjoy 'Gig's Up: 50 Years of Punk Poster Art'
Punk poster art might be one of the most disposable art forms– stapled to telephone poles or pinned to a crowded cafe bulletin board, they’re often trashed in the days following the gig they advertise, but a local gallery show has collected five decades worth as a display of local history.
When Milwaukee musician Nev Crnojevich passed away in the summer of 2024, Dave Luhrssen, managing editor of the Shepherd Express, who has covered the local scene since the ‘70s, talked with Clancy Carroll, another old friend of Crnojevich and the discussion struck inspiration.
“Out of that came the idea of honoring the bands of that era with a show of locally made posters,” Luhrssen explains. “Clancy and I worked with two other co-curators, WMSE’s Paul Host and Tim Noble, and the concept for the show expanded to include poster work by Milwaukee artists for DIY bands from recent decades and the present.”
Carroll was in a good position to help curate “Gig’s Up: 50 Years of Punk Poster Art,” as his bands like The Ones, The Dominoes, Clancy Carroll Band, Combustor (and more) spread across the timeline of the show. A self-described “packrat/ collector,” Carroll was able to pull from his own collection.
“I just saw them all as artifacts that were worth saving and did so starting in 1977 or so when Milwaukee’s punk scene first started up,” Carroll says. “I’ve been collecting them off and on ever since.”
The show is currently on display at the Real Tinsel Gallery (1013-1015 W. Historic Mitchell St.). A hardcover catalog of the show includes a sampling of the work, as chosen by the gallery’s director, Shane McAdams.
Carroll says the show curators met several times to review their material for inclusion. “In addition, where we may have had ‘holes’ in our collections and wanted to better represent as much of the spectrum of design over the last 50 years, we reached out to other collectors, as well as artists/designers/printers to gather additional materials to include,” Carroll says.
|
|
One of the featured artists is Eric Von Munz, who started hanging around basement shows in the 1980s, where he met John Hill (also featured in the show). Von Munz got a job working the counter at Tie Me Down, an alternative store on Brady Street, where he continued to hang out with Hill to talk about art and met Cliff and Marie Ulsburger (of Wanda Chrome and the Leather Pharaohs).
Photo by Celeste Caroll
'Gig's Up: 50 Years of Punk Poster Art' exhibition
“When we’d spot a good band playing here, we would just make something for them, in hopes of getting some other people interested in seeing the gig. Man…Or Astro-Man? in 1997 changed everything,” Von Munz says. “Looking at our black and white Xeroxed posters they said, ‘these are cool, but we get screen printed posters now.’ While it was deflating to hear, we did know that Cliff had recently started screen printing t-shirts out of his basement and that’s when we all really came together to figure out this new screen-printed poster thing.”
One of Von Munz’s most well-known works is a 1999 The Mistreaters/ White Stripes poster for a show at Cactus Club that was screen-printed onto old vinyl LPs instead of paper, but he says among his favorite designs is a poster he created for a show by The Cramps at the Modjeska Theater in 1998.
Several panel discussions and performances have tied into the show, which is open through December. The next event will be on Friday, Oct. 24 and includes a panel discussion titled “DIY Art and the Dada Spirit in Milwaukee Music Posters.”
“(It) will include Eric Von Munz, Guy Hoffman, James Kloiber, Francisco Ramirez, and Damian Strigens,” Carroll says. “The panel will be moderated by gallery owner Shane McAdams and will discuss the artists’ backstories, influences, techniques and technologies as they have evolved over the last half century. There will also be a musical performance by Original XCleaver Tom Tiedjens’ Spud Bucket, and video from ‘Do The Video, Marc Ferch Archives.’”
