You can hear sound in pictures, can’t you? The slick, spitting whoosh of a car’s tyres on a wet road, the rush of wind in the ears as a hawk circles the sky. I can hear sound and music when I look at art. A far-off accordion on a Parisian arrondissement when I look at Van Gogh’s Starry Night. The gentle chirping, breezy sound of the Italian countryside in the background of the Mona Lisa. Low level muttered chatter, barely audible, when studying Hopper’s Nighthawks. Even if the current Banksy exhibition in Glasgow wasn’t soundtracked by background beats, I’d expect to hear fragmented hip hop, cut-up DJ Shadow-type rhythms as I observed Banksy’s highly intelligent mish-mash of politically-charged street art.
Jamie Reid’s art that went hand in hand with punk screams loudly at you. Ransom notes cut out from newspapers, laid off line with no regard for placement of capital letters was the perfect encapsulation of a scene at odds with the conventions of society. The ultimate statement – sticking a safety pin through the top lip of the Queen during Jubilee year – was perhaps his – and punk’s – defining moment.
If you’ve never heard a Sex Pistols’ record, I can imagine that Jamie Reid’s art tells you all you need to know about the noise that’ll fly off the grooves. Loud, in your face, unconventional, provocative, new, exciting…all these things relate to both the Pistols’ output and the artwork that it came wrapped in.
Sex Pistols – God Save The Queen
Other artists and labels have formed perfect marriages of visual to audio – the Factory Records catalogue, that run of unmatchable Smiths singles, Vaughan Oliver’s metaphorical interpretations of Pixies’ unholy racket, but without Jamie Reid’s redefining of what sleeve art could be, these bands’ and labels’ releases might have looked very different. Other than Prog, which had Hypgnosis and Roger Dean creating grand, sweeping and highly stylised visions of far-off lands and fantastical creatures that mirrored the widescreen and grandiose ideas of the music within, much music up until punk came wrapped in company sleeves or bog-standard band photos. I’m not sure, pre punk, bands had such things as logos. No band since punk would be seen without one.
With Malcolm McLaren dead and, more recently, Vivienne Westwood, Jamie Reid’s death has seen the end of punk’s holy triumvirate, its trio of agitators and prrrovocateurs now gone forever. Their art, their style, their influence lives on. No future? I don’t think so.
Plain Or Pan 