For some time, I thought these exhibits at Shepard Fairey’s Subliminal Projects were all mine, there always were lots of people but it was reasonable. Now it seems that the word is out, the whole punk rock population of Los Angeles is lining up hours at the opening night, and it gets more and more tricky! Who let my secret out? It is way too popular and this new exhibit ‘Avenues & Alleyways’ by Tim Armstrong, which was opening on Friday night, was no exception. When I arrived, there was a mile-long line of people patiently waiting along Sunset Boulevard and adjacent streets. The thing is that there are now free concerts the same night, and not any concerts but concerts by punk rock legends, so the attraction is multiplied by ten at least. Come to see your favorite band’s visual art and see them play a few songs at the same time! No wonder it’s crowded! Last time I got very lucky and managed to see the concert with Billy Idol and the Sex Pistols’ Steve Jones, Blondie’s Clem Burke and Bow Wow Wow’s Leigh Gorman despite not wearing the required wristband, this time,… but no such luck, so I got to hear Tim Timebomb & Friends’ set from afar (a mix of old-school rock, punk and ska from what I could tell) within the line of disappointed Rancid fans. Let’s be clear, these free concerts are like the bait which makes the crowd grow like weeds, but there is almost no hope to get in if you don’t have this I-have-connections-wristband! ‘We never know’ told me several times a fan who had come much more for the music than the art. While waiting online, I had plenty of time to talk with Rancid fans, and the two I talked to were very nice guys! One of them was truly interested by Armstrong’s art, and he even bought a limited edition of print set of 7” covers. ‘Was it expensive?’ I asked him, and yes it was!
But even avid Rancid fans did not know that Tim Armstrong was a visual artist. The exhibit was featuring never seen before artwork, reflecting his vision and his multiple musical projects: Rancid, Operation Ivy, The Transplants. His visual art (drawings, paintings and watercolors as well as mixed media on found materials that Armstrong and Shepard Fairey had worked on together) was big and loud, with lots of women, thick black strokes, and great colors, sky blue, emerald green, ochre and burgundy red. I quite liked it right away, it was raw and jumping in your face, with a real interest into people, faces, guitars, skulls and revolvers, certainly more spontaneous than refined, and following the principle that ‘passion is more important than precision’. Some of these women were like a modern and punk version of Toulouse Lautrec’s ones…There also were a lot of these poetic sentences scrawled across some paintings, which was providing plenty of reading.
Shepard Fairey, who was the DJ of the evening as usual, had this to say about his friend’s art: ‘Tim Armstrong’s art has a visceral lyricism and immediacy that screams “if you feel it in your guts…express it with your hands!” The D.I.Y. punk ethos of honesty and emphasis on raw instinct that is so integral to Tim’s music is clearly evident in his tremendous body of gestural and poetic visual art. I was amazed by the quality and diversity within Tim’s “Tim Timebomb” project for which he created a song and piece of art each day for a year. If Tim’s drive and proliferation in multiple mediums don’t inspire you to get off your ass, nothing will!’ And beside these Tim Timebomb pieces of art for each day of the year, there also was a full collection of deceased musicians – not included into the Rock and Roll of Fame as it was specified – which had been a big influence on his life and art. At the end, I thought that Tim Armstrong was damn interested by people in general, and people, by showing up in mass last night, were returning the love.
The rest of the night turned into a sort of joyous karaoke of drunk punk rock songs around Fairey’s turn tables, and at this moment a woman decided to show me her tattoo inside her lower lips. ‘What is it?’ I asked her… ‘Punk rock!’ she answered, of course… I realized one funny detail once home: I knew little about Tim Armstrong before coming, and I knew even less about his personal life. I read a bit about him on Wikipedia and learnt that he was married to Brody Dalle who left him to get married with QOTSA’s Josh Homme… Coincidently I was wearing a QOTSA tee shirt on Friday night… What a faux pas! Fortunately nobody seemed to notice.
