Punk? Punk, Punks, Pre- Punk, Post- Punk? MATHIEU VALADE
From the very beginning, punk was closely linked with Situationist thought, from which it borrowed its negativity, deviancy, nihilis- tic violence and disgust with the era. But its ties to avant-garde movements go back even further, reflecting a Dadaist arrogance, a Futurist defence of noise, an Arthur Cravan-like taste for provoca- tion and, like all avant-garde movements perhaps, a short future. It was pronounced dead, in fact, as early as 1978 in a provocative act of self-sabotage, which was followed by countless resurrec- tions, as if this killing were not definitive. With Post-Punk Art Now it is this heritage that is being explored, not only in terms of ideology (DIY, anarchism) but aesthetics: its taste for ugliness, reappropriation of violence, intrinsic hybridiza- tion that excluded all dogmas, its hijacking of oppressive symbols and perception of art in terms of its negation. Like all avant-garde movements, punk wanted above all to wipe the slate clean. This project seeks to examine this new slate not with the aim of repro- ducing it, but rather of weighing its heritage in artistic terms, of assessing its impact on the world of today and tomorrow. Although punk is already in the museum, we can expect it to re-emerge in new subversive forms, reflecting what it really is: a bastard cultural movement that cannot be consistently portrayed; a creative force mixed with self-destructive instincts, fully capa- ble of toppling its own statues. Dès ses origines le punk a entretenu une relation étroite avec la pensée situationniste à laquelle il emprunte la négativité, la pra- tique du détournement, une violence nihiliste, le dégoût de son temps, mais son rapport aux avant-gardes peut remonter plus loin : on retrouve chez lui l’arrogance dadaïste, l’apologie du bruit des futuristes, un sens de la provocation que n’aurait pas renié Arthur Cravan, et comme les avant-gardes il n’était peut-être pas destiné à durer.
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