“No punk ever bought or really cared about my work,” artist Raymond Pettibon recently said in an interview with Massimiliano Gioni, artistic director at the New Museum. “I was part of the punk thing, but not as an artist. I am not really interested in this kind of cheap historicity, which has ended up constructing a fiction of myself as a punk author.”
Pettibon’s roots in punk started in Hermosa Beach, a city that saw an influential jazz scene form in the ‘50s and ‘60s, and later became an underground haven for punk music. It’s the birthplace of Black Flag, which was founded by Pettibon’s brother, Greg Ginn. Around the same time Pettibon graduated from art school, following a stint as a high-school math teacher, he designed the group’s logo — a stylized flag made up of four black bars.
After decades of creating album covers and his own artworks combining text/image, high-brow/low-brow, history/mythology, and art-world/literary references, Pettibon is having his first major New York museum survey at the New Museum, open through April 9. This is the largest exhibition of Pettibon’s work to date and includes more than 700 drawings from the ‘60s to the present, zines, artist’s books, and video work. See a preview of Raymond Pettibon: A Pen of All Work in our gallery.
No Title (Shrill whistle. Oh…), 1990. Pen and ink on paper, 14 x 10 1/2 (35.6 x 25.7 cm). Private collection. Courtesy David Zwirner, New York
No Title (Did I do…), 1987. Pen and ink on paper, 14 x 11 in (35.6 x 27.9 cm). Private collection, Switzerland. Courtesy Blondeau & Cie, Geneva
No Title (Batman was nowhere…), 1986. Ink on paper, 8 1/2 x 11 in (21.6 x 27.9 cm). Courtesy David Zwirner, New York
No Title (O.D. a Hippie), 1982. Pen and ink on paper, 17 x 11 in (43 x 28 cm). Collection Bruno Brunnet. Courtesy Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin
No Title (Fight for freedom!), 1981. Pen and ink on paper, 11 x 8 1/2 in (27.9 x 21.6 cm). Private collection. Courtesy Regen Projects, Los Angeles
Captive Chains, 1978. Artist’s book, offset print, p. 57. 10 1/2 x 7 1/4 in (26.8 x 18.5 cm). Courtesy David Zwirner, New York
Captive Chains, 1978. Artist’s book, offset print, p. 45. 10 1/2 x 7 1/4 in (26.8 x 18.5 cm). Courtesy David Zwirner, New York
No title (This feeling is), 2011. Pen and ink on paper, 37 1/4 x 49 1/2 in (94.6 x 125.7 cm). Aishti Foundation, Beirut, Lebanon. Photography courtesy the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles
No Title (As he enlarged), 2009. Pen, ink, gouache, acrylic, and collage on paper, 38 1/4 x 38 3/4 in (97.2 x 98.4 cm). Private collection, London. Courtesy Sadie Coles HQ, London
No Title (The war, now…), 2008. Pen, ink, gouache, and acrylic on paper, 24 x 19 in (61 x 48.3 cm). Courtesy David Zwirner, New York
No Title (The land has…), 2008. Pen, ink, and gouache on paper, 29 1/2 x 22 1/4 in (74.9 x 65.5 cm). Courtesy David Zwirner, New York
No Title (To a tune), 1991. Ink on paper, 22 1/2 x 30 1/8 in (57.2 x 76.5 cm). Robert Berman Gallery, Santa Monica