What were the conditions for art and music-making before the era of neoliberal capitalism? What role did punk play in turning artists to experiment with popular music in the late 1970s and early 1980s? And why does the art and music of these times seem so newly pertinent to our political present, despite the seeming remoteness of its historical moment?

Focusing upon the production of post-punk art, film, music, and publishing, “Post-Punk Then and Now” offers new perspectives on an overlooked period of cultural activity, and probes the lessons that might be learnt from history for artists and musicians working under 21st century conditions of austerity. Contemporary reflections by those who shaped avant-garde and contestatory culture in the UK, US, Brazil and Poland in the 1970s and 1980s. Alongside these are contributions by contemporary artists, curators and scholars that provide critical perspectives on post-punk then, and its generative relation to the aesthetics and politics of cultural production today: Sue Clayton, Green Gartside, Dominic Johnson, Lydia Lunch, Eliete Mejorado. Laura Oldfield Ford, Agata Pyzik, Tom Vague, Gee Vaucher and Bruno Verner.

About the editors:

Gavin Butt works as a transdisciplinary scholar across the intersecting areas of performance studies, queer studies, visual culture, and popular music. Before taking up the Attenborough Chair at Sussex in September 2016, he was Professor of Visual Cultures and Performance at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Kodwo Eshun is a British-Ghanaian writer, theorist and filmmaker. He studied English Literature at University College, Oxford University, and Romanticism and Modernism MA Hons at Southampton University.
Mark Fisher (1968 – 2017) was a co-founder of Zero Books and, later, Repeater Books. His blog, k-punk, defined critical writing for a generation.