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New writing, an essay for J. Rinehart Gallery and the artist Junko Yamamoto:
www.jrinehartgallery.com/exhibition-calendar/junko-yamamoto-cosmic-web |
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- Above images from Mark C, 1979
A component of Jack Fan Product is an excavation of black and white images shot in the mid- to late-Seventies with a Kodak Instamatic, self-triggered with a white cord tied from the shutter to some part of my body.
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images from Pola-Reds, left January 1978, right, fall 1977
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from the Kodak Instamatic black and white 120 film
shot in 1975-1978 years, this image has been
selected for the Columbia City Gallery exhibit, Roar.
August 2018
shot in 1975-1978 years, this image has been
selected for the Columbia City Gallery exhibit, Roar.
August 2018
Equal parts a record of self-definition and a document of re-invention, these images were taken during my time as an art student in the San Francisco punk scene, 1978-79. Repose: Post Punk Portraits exhibits for the first time pictures of some of my circle, the friends who passed through my rooms. I was first and foremost a fan--Jack Fan--of my friends' art and their bands. I was also a queer artist questioning prevailing modes of presentation. Digital prints from vintage Polaroids honor the D.I.Y. punk ethos and testify to fluid queer space, from the expanse of one's own bedroom.
20aMPC, fanzines from 1979,
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Jack Johnston began using Polaroid film in the late 1970s to document his life and his private performances as a queer art punk. Pola-Reds: Confections from the Edge adds a chapter to the throng of books on San Francisco punk rock, here from the stage at home, in the bedroom and art studio, the camera with a self-timer standing in for the mirror in front of which we have all danced.
Then as now, I am conscious of the importance of the pose, of concocting a confection of presence and presentation. I didn't take pictures of pride parades, gay rights marches, and shot few pictures of bands and musicians. For the most part, I recorded myself dancing alone in my bedroom after a night out. If you're gonna be called a poseur, you might as well be good at posing.
Then as now, I am conscious of the importance of the pose, of concocting a confection of presence and presentation. I didn't take pictures of pride parades, gay rights marches, and shot few pictures of bands and musicians. For the most part, I recorded myself dancing alone in my bedroom after a night out. If you're gonna be called a poseur, you might as well be good at posing.
Pola-Reds: Confections from the Edge
Limited First Edition 72-page full-color book
$
20.00
Jack Johnston was known as Jack Fan, Jack Off, and Jack Poster for a while on the late Seventies San Francisco punk scene . A student at SF Art Institute as punk took root the summer of ’77 in San Francisco, Jack Fan bounced back into the now-thriving punk scene with a declamatory Fire Engine Red Crazy Color hair, after a fall tour on the East Coast. Jack was a disc-jockey at Café Flore and at the Deaf Club. As Jack Poster he made fliers for many bands but especially the Situations, Noh Mercy and the Offs. A few of Jack’s fliers were included in the seminal Street Art: The Punk Poster in San Francisco, 1977-1981, (Peter Belsito, Bob Davis and Marian Kester, Last Gasp, SF, 1981). Jack Off contributed cover art for the Offs’ first 45, “624803,” and roadied for the band on the April ’79 tour to Austin & NYC. Jack created three fanzines for the Deaf Club—20aMPC, Wrestle News and the Anti-Zine. For a number of years Jack Johnston wrote for and co-edited the WARD Report, the publication of Alan Robinson's influential Western Association of Rock Disk-jockeys, and wrote the liner notes for the Romeo Void compilation, Warm in Your Coat (Sony/Legacy, 1992).
Pola-Reds: Confections from the Edge is available at Nationale in Portland, OR, Needles & Pens and City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, and is in collections at Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, San Francisco Art Institute and the library of Gay City Health Project, Seattle.
