TOO FAST TO LIVE, TOO YOUNG TO DIE REDUX: PUNK GRAPHIC DESIGN, REVERSING INTO THE FUTURE: NEW WAVE GRAPHIC DESIGN

Emmanuel Gallery

Curated Sections: Queer Bodies in Punk and New Wave / Preparator / Exhibition Design / Installation

“Punk emerged in reaction to the straightjacket culture and excesses of midcentury Britain and America. This exhibition explores the art and graphic design that closely accompanied and inspired the Punk and New Wave movements of the 70s and 80s.  It features the storied posters, album covers, patches, and fashion that disillusioned youth wore across their backs and blasted from stages and clubs. The iconic imagery designed by in-tune influential artists such as Malcolm Garrett and Barney Bubbles reflects the values, disenfranchisement, anger, and hope of a new generation. Armed with a DIY graphic vocabulary clashing against corporate ideals and consumerism, the Punks and New Wavers of the 70s and 80s inspired legions of youth across the world to live outside the lines. 

The art in these two exhibitions is generously lent by New York-based Andrew Krivine, who holds one of the most important and vast collections of Punk, Post-Punk, and New Wave graphic art.  Students from CU Denver's College of Arts & Media collaborated with Krivine, the Emmanuel Gallery, and Art History Professor Maria Buszek to curate an exhibition through the lens of design and fashion. These ideas resonate today, from Rock Against Racism and Queerness to Women's Rights and Politics. Music, Art, and Fashion can foment dissent, reinforce propaganda, terrorize, comfort, or even foster rebellion. It can change the world.”

JEFF LAMBSON, DIRECTOR & CURATOR EMMANUEL GALLERY

Over the past ten years, Andrew Krivine has loaned materials to punk graphic design exhibitions around the world, including his recent seminal exhibition Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die at the Museum of Art and Design in New York. Krivine's book on Punk & Post-Punk graphic design, Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die, will be available at as well as a limited edition version, were published by UK publishers Pavilion Books and Rocket 88 Books. His, Reversing Into The Future: New Wave Graphics, is being released concurrently with the opening of the exhibitions at CU-Denver. The North American distributor for both books is Rizzoli Books.

**Too Fast To Live, Too Young to Die is based on the previous exhibition, Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die: Punk Graphics, 1976–1986, organized by Cranbrook Art Museum and curated by Andrew Blauvelt and Steffi Duarte.

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