Caroline Coon: Nothing to Lose
The artist, Caroline Coon, was part of the early Punk scene and the author of one of the first books on Punk, '1988: The New Wave Punk Rock Explosion' (1977). Her photographs are an important, intimate record of its heady early days. As she has explained:
'In 1976, I saw the Sex Pistols perform their second gig and immediately I recognised a galvanizing new expression of sub-cultural revolt. The national press was critical and the music press didn’t want to know. The music critic of The Sunday Times pronounced punk “the latest musical garbage… Punk will fade… its apologists are ludicrous… when it dies it will not be mourned”. But I knew it was necessary to record what was happening. Urgently I upgraded the Kodak Instamatic I used for my painting to a Nikon F2 SLR. As the early days of the dramatic punk scene evolved - created by bands like the Sex Pistols, The Clash, the Damned and the Slits - I photographed and interviewed musicians and fans.'
