Punk Art History

'I wish this book had been available to me when I was a 16-year-old punk in 2006 who had only ever read or heard of Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain’s Please Kill Me. [...] Indeed, we’re living in an exciting time for a burgeoning wealth of punk studies. The generations that follow will be offered a rich array of research, in part due to researchers like Marie Arleth Skov and Punk Art History for, what is offered in Skov’s monograph is a different view from those typically offered in mainstream punk histories.

Skov’s writing is fresh and accessible – the density of her research could be easily overwhelming were it not for her engaging tone. The book exceeded my expectations, in that I assumed I was sitting down for a primer in punk – but was completely wrong. This is a highly academic monograph, written in a way that one might feel as if they’re seated with a close friend explaining a dense international network of ideas, and the artistic movements of which that network pays homage or may have in part, been bred from. Skov offers the research to her reader in delightful bite-sized, but well-written chapter sections.

This book is a service to the movement and belongs among the shelves of any self-purported full-time (or, even, to quote Television Personalities, ‘part-time’) punks.'

-- Emily Owens, Punk & Post-Punk

'Punk Art History is a dazzling and original exploration of punk’s relationship to contemporary art. Skov has produced a rigorously-researched, engaging, and accessible journey into punk’s art-historical foundations. Drawing on her PhD research, personal history, archival material, and interviews with those active within first-wave punk, Skov creates a tapestry of punk-art-history from Berlin, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, and London throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Her work is so rich it could be examined within a myriad of disciplines – art, music, subcultural studies, history, psychology – however, as a writer and researcher of punk and philosophy I found the philosophical threads running throughout Punk Art History the most fascinating and insightful aspect of her work. [...]

Punk’s beauty lies in its ability to simultaneously embody both death and creation, and Skov demonstrates the plentiful ways in which punk-art captured this paradox. Furthermore, she eschews the ‘punk-as-postmodernism’ argument in favour of ‘punk-as-post-historical’, a reading which allows for a more fruitful discussion. [...] There is so much more to this work than I have managed to capture here – you’ll have to read it to find out.'

Full review at Loud Women

-- Grace Healy, Loud Women

'Capturing the sharp, subversive energy that fueled punk art and music, Punk Art History is a blistering, scintillating chronicle of rebellious brilliance'

-- Foreword

'Skov describes incendiary punk artworks in vivid detail and with an eye for humor. The book is equally for scholars and for punk kids in cities with DIY music scenes.'

-- Sarah Wolberg, Library Journal

'What Skov has achieved with this book is to shine the light on a much-ignored part of punk, pulling on exemplary research and an insightful vision to illuminate an important art movement. It will be a sourcebook on the subject for many years to come. It is an essential addition to any serious punk library.

Skov is a Danish art historian, author and curator based in Berlin. She works on the subjects of music, art and sexuality, with a historical focus on Surrealism and the punk movement of the 1970–80s. She is also an international affiliate of the Punk Scholars Network, and it’s clear from this book that she knows, and loves, her subject well'

Full review at Louder Than War

-- Mark Ray, Louder Than War

“If you have ever wondered why you read about Marcel Duchamp in the morning, visit Kippenberger exhibitions in the afternoon, and listen to Black Flag or Suicide in a club at night, this is your book. It reveals the suspicion we’ve always had about the deep affinity between contemporary art and punk, that appropriation and do-it-yourself are the same, as much as the Sex Pistols’ ‘no future’ and Arthur Danto’s ‘The Death of Art.’ Marie Arleth Skov had that suspicion, because this is also a personal book: a story full of affinities shared in a wild cry that longs to destroy art in order to change life.”

-- David G. Torres, art critic, curator, and professor, Barcelona

“Punk Art History is an energetic, unique, and engaging exploration of punk’s relationship to both art and the associated discourse of art history. Marie Arleth Skov takes you along on a sometimes chaotic and dangerous journey, working the pressure points of her material focus with great detail, accuracy, and crossdisciplinary analysis.”

-- Ian Trowell, independent scholar and writer, Cambridge

“As an art historian who is both a fan and a scholar of punk, I have been waiting for someone to write this book! Punk Art History is the first real scholarly survey of both the art-historical influences and visual culture of the artists to emerge from punk in Europe and the United States. Rigorously researched and accessibly written, spanning Duchamp to Divine to Die Tödliche Doris, Marie Arleth Skov has finally written an art history that is truly punk AF.”

-- Maria Elena Buszek, curator and professor, University of Colorado Denver

'Punk Art History, which describes the history of artists, works and exhibitions that consciously stepped aside from the mainstream of art, is a refreshing reading experience precisely because it looks at Art history of the turn of the 1970s and 1980s from a fresh angle. Although the subculture formed around punk rock has already been studied in the 1970s, the areas of interest have recently expanded, as Skov brings out in this book, for example women's agency or scenes outside the Anglo-American context. Punk culture is also studied in new disciplines. Skov also reminds me that art history is a discipline where the study of punk culture is relatively new.'

-- Riikka Niemelä, Tahiti - art history as a science [translated from Finnish through Goo