Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
Unable to open [object Object]: HTTP 0 attempting to load TileSource: https://ids.lib.harvard.edu/ids/iiif/20416416/info.json
Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
This object does not yet have a description.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
2006.288
People
Raymond Pettibon, American (Tucson, Arizona born 1957)
Title
Black Flag /Turrrrnnn Offff thhe Raaaadio
Classification
Prints
Work Type
print
Date
c. 1982
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/317817

Physical Descriptions

Technique
Photolithograph
Dimensions
sheet: 28 x 21.6 cm (11 x 8 1/2 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: l. r. in red ink: Raymond Pettibon
  • inscription: lower left in red ink: 174
  • inscription: lower right in red ink, signed: Raymond Pettibon

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Margaret Fisher Fund
Copyright
© Raymond Pettibon
Accession Year
2006
Object Number
2006.288
Division
Modern and Contemporary Art
Contact
am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu
Permissions

The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request.

Descriptions

Description
Editioned print from SST Records, Lawndale, CA.
Commentary
These two prints by Californian artist Raymond Pettibon join one print already in the Fogg collection. Although he has since become an internationally-recognized figure, the subject of monographic exhibitions at a host of institutions, these prints-produced in the early- to mid-1980s-represent a very different point in Pettibon's career. Both stem from Pettibon's close association with the southern California punk scene of the late seventies and early eighties, in particular the seminal band Black Flag and the record label SST Records (Black Flag guitarist and SST founder Greg Ginn is Pettibon's brother).
Both prints-one a signed offset lithograph published in unknown quantity by SST, the other a photocopied flyer announcing a Black Flag gig-exemplify do-it-yourself attitude of the punk scene, which refused with equal vehemence the perceived elitism of high art and the repressive sameness of the "culture industry". The increasingly widespread photocopier became a powerful tool in the creation of an oppositional mode of cultural production, effectively turning any teenager into his or her own publishing house and any local bulletin board or wall into a space of oppositional display.
Both works testify to the pervasive sense of disquiet that marks Pettibon's oeuvre, which draws extensively on the forms and subjects of American popular culture and simultaneously exposes its darker undercurrents and desires. In the drawing for this Xeroxed flyer, Pettibon invests an image of a devil peering through a microscope with an ambiguous psychosexual charge. "Turrrnnn offff thhe raaaadio…" evokes the angst and anomie, and dissatisfaction with prevailing forms of cultural expression, that fueled the punk scene, especially as it moved into the conservative, middle-class suburbs of Orange County.

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Modern and Contemporary Art at am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu