November 19th, 2011 Prism Gallery, West Hollywood, California

(West Hollywood, CA)  Well, the much ballyhooed opening for the first ever retrospective of the Detroit area proto-punk/art/noise pioneers, Destroy All Monsters  (“The Return Of The Repressed”) at the tony West Hollywood art space, Prism Gallery www.prismla.com was a resounding Tinseltown smash hit.

The exhibit not only brought out movie stars, Rock stars and supermodels, but also out a cadre of important artists as well as some impressive dealers and art moguls- to see what this quirky quartet of young Detroit area artists came up with from 1973-1977 in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Even stranger, for on this mid-November night, Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood became Woodward Avenue, as an A list of guests came to fete the 1970’s underground multi-media Detroit collective comprised of Jim Shaw, Niagara, Cary Loren and Mike Kelley.

The Retrospective was co-curated by Kelley and PictureBox Books, Dan Nadel, who also   published a companion book to the exhibit as well.

The opening’s guests included, Actor/ Singer Jack Black and wife Tanya Haden, Victoria’s Secret Supermodel, Alessandra Ambrosio, DEVO’s Mark Mothersbaugh, Artists, Ed Ruscha, Robert Williams, Jonah Freeman, Barry McGee and Rosson Crow, Fashion Designer, Jeremy Scott, heiress, Nicky Hilton and French Vogue editor, filmmaker, founder of Sotheby’s Fashion Auction House and Hollywood mogul royalty, Liz Goldwyn (who purchased many of Niagara’s pieces) and Art magnate, Jeffrey Deitch- to drop only a few of the names who came to pay homage to this Detroit-centric exhibit.

Links with photos from the opening are below

From The Mess To The Masses-

Mike Kelley has emerged as one of the most caustic and confrontive artists in the latter part of the 20th Century.  Kelley somehow has raised a Lowbrow genre into high, conceptual art ,and has that rare talent of  someone who can make the banal disturbing, or the horrible attractive.
Jim Shaw’s technical brilliance and vision have also placed him into a blue chip status with Kelley, and along with Photographer and Bookseller, Carey Loren, whose sublime photographs and experimental films (mostly with muse Niagara) document this creative amalgamation of misfits…
However, It’s Niagara’s early obsessively rendered retro Art Nouveau illustrations and watercolor paintings of the timeless female figurative, invoke both beauty and ennui and  is the exhibit’s revelation. Even as a young student, Niagara’s subjects were mysteriously complex, in love with the unknown and open to the excess of life- and death. This early style subtly hints at her future work where the narrative is a common thread of feminine empowerment, excess and danger. The main difference is the  Post Victorian hand is  replaced by a Comic/Cartoon style delivery , with bold color and femmes fatales who are both hard-boiled and witty. She has become a master of minimalist narrative who can tell a sordid or decadent short story in one colorful painting. Even Carey Loren’s photos and films predominately revolved around this charismatic and beautiful artist, whose work is finally being embraced by the jaded and concept weary LA Art Gods as a refreshing and honest depiction of the Post-Pop feminine mystique.
The Queen of Detroit now appears to have a much larger kingdom after this important show.

And she worked damn hard to take the DAM aesthetic into her avant punk art pose through the 80’s.

Even before the rest of us had heard of Destroy All Monsters (For most due chiefly to Niagara’s musical continuation of the band with legendary Stooges guitarist, Ron Asheton) these 3 weirdos and a beautiful ingénue (who was not only a member of the group, she was also it’s muse) made quiet history. Driven to express living in the great wrong place, DAM created an impressive amount of edgy, funny and relevant multi-media art that doesn’t follow any genre, rule or aesthetic

In short, Destroy All Monsters were challenging all mediums with equal doses of technical brilliance, DIY aesthetic and sociopathic sarcasm as they inadvertently invented both Anti Rock and Noise.  Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, who would eventually release all of these early Shaw/Niagara/Kelley/Loren lo fi recordings as a box set in the 90’s, was the first to champion them. As a side effect and as a result of promoting their anti-rock shows, they also invented the Punk Flyer, or proto-Punk flyer to more specific, utilizing montage and “Ransom Note” style type, a good 3 years before The Reid Brothers changed the design world.
The exhibit and book makes the flyers a central element of the collaborative nature of DAM right along with the films, illustrations, paintings and photographs, as they hijacked University of Michigan’s early Xerox machines to produce their edgy broadsides, to shows hardly anyone would attend.

DAM may have originated in obscurity in Ann Arbor, but their legacy reverberates to this day after over 35 years.

Together or separately, DAM has earned their place in the history of American Art.
And it unapologetically and proudly, screams- Detroit.

Destroy All Monsters “The Return Of The Repressed” Through January 7th 2012
Prism Gallery

8746 W. Sunset Boulevard
West Hollywood, CA  90069
T 310.289.1301

“The Return Of The Repressed”  Book available for review electronically upon request.

The Gallery & Exhibit

http://www.prismla.com/exhibit/destroy-all-monsters-1973-1977/

The Book-

http://www.artbook.com/9780983719908.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/25/arts/design/art-books-recommended-as-gifts-for-art-lovers.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2

The Reportage-

http://artforum.com/words/#entry29535

http://www.artinfo.com/photo-galleries/slideshow-destroy-all-monsters-at-prism

http://www.juxtapoz.com/Current/in-la-return-of-the-repressed-destroy-all-monsters-prism-gallery

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/25/arts/design/art-books-recommended-as-gifts-for-art-lovers.html?_r=2&pagewanted=3

http://www.wdetfm.org/news/story/DAMFeature/

Paparazzi-

http://rdujour.com/2011/11/23/destroy-all-monsters-opening-at-prism-gallery/

http://bfanyc.com/home/event/2467

http://fastfilm1.blogspot.com/2011/11/niagara-and-destroy-all-monsters.html