'Made In The UK' by Janette Beckman [The ZOO]

Visit Janette Beckman's exhibition 'Made In The UK' at the powerHouse Gallery.
Opens Thursday, September 15, 2005 and continues through October 6, 2005
Reception is on Thursday, September 15, 2005, 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.

We will be featuring a story on Janette's exhibition this fall. In the meantime, Janette Beckman says:

Once upon a time in the UK, before MTV and big business took over the music industry, before people became obsessed with money, before the time of stylists and expensive designer labels, when bands had total artistic control, anything seemed possible, there were no rules and they were making it up as they went along.

Just out of art school, I was working for the music paper Melody Maker taking photos of three or more bands a week. Around the corner in Covent Garden was my attic studio and darkroom - a tiny room with no heat and a bucket to catch the rain dripping through the hole in the ceiling. It was right in the centre of London, close to all the best clubs, pubs, and cafes, and my rent was $70 per month. Brilliant.

The bands were just like us, a mix of mostly working-class kids and former art students. There were no publicists to keep you away from the band; you traveled with them on the coach, hung out in the bar, ate in the caff, went to the sound check, and poked your camera wherever you could.

The fans were often friends of the bands. They looked fantastic: punks, skinheads, rockabilly, 2 tone, self-styled kids with that attention to detail. They were wearing bin liners (garbage bags), shopping at jumble sales, army surplus stores, ripping up their mum's old sweater, sticking a few safety pins in their school blazer to look good. It was the D.I.Y. aesthetic and it didn't cost anything.

You didn't have to follow the traditional idea of beauty to be a star. Think Poly Styrene with her braces on her teeth and wild hair singing 'Oh bondage up yours'; Shane Macgowan, the spotty punk; Jerry Dammers with this front teeth missing. Style, attitude and music were everything.

As Dee Dee Ramone said '[Punk] gave everyone a chance to say something. That's revolution'. And despite unemployment and 'No Future', many people look back on those years between 1977 and 1983 affectionately as one of the last times that their generation felt so happy and carefree.

New York, July 29, 2005