Fifty years on from the creative explosion of punk, a small exhibition in north London is setting the record straight about the movement’s pioneering women. The Museum of Youth Culture, which opened in June, dedicates its second exhibition to the “she-punks” whose distinctive artistic voices shaped the snarl of the late ’70s.
God Save the Queens, which runs until November 22, is a single-room show but as packed and energetic as any good punk gig: photography and art running floor-to-ceiling, film footage of performances and interviews, artefacts and, of course, an incredible soundtrack.
A wall of photos depicts the movement’s key players: all-female bands like The Slits and The Raincoats; iconic singers such as Siouxsie Sioux, Pauline Black, Debbie Harry and Patti Smith; and many lesser-known lynchpins of the scene. (Keep an eye out for Andi Oliver – yes, that one – whose career in TV and restaurants followed her stint as vocalist for the band Rip Rig & Panic.) Another display shows photos sent in by punk fans in response to the museum’s public call, and backstage shots by Annette Weatherman document the rough-and-ready, do-it-yourself spirit of the earliest punk gigs.
The opposite wall is dedicated to visual art, and shows how multidisciplinary the she-punks were. Musicians such as X-Ray Spex’s Poly Styrene and Lora Logic and The Slits’s Tessa Pollitt also designed posters and artwork; Gina Birch of The Raincoats and Gaye Black of The Adverts turned their creative practice from music to fine art, continuing right to the present day. Artists such as Linder and Caroline Coon played key roles in the punk scene, as did fashion designers: Vivienne Westwood, Pam Hogg and Zandra Rhodes are all represented. A striking series of leather jackets hand-painted by the artist Sue Webster pays tribute to punk/goth icon Siouxsie Sioux.
A display of items from the Poly Styrene archive is particularly moving, given the singer’s death at just 53. Brought up Marianne Joan Elliott-Said, Poly Styrene was a working-class, Somali British Brixton girl. After seeing the Sex Pistols in the heatwave summer of 1976, she seized on punk as an opportunity for self-expression and liberation – and that included defying the rapidly forming clichés of the movement itself. Her band X-Ray Spex’s debut single Oh Bondage! Up Yours! became a rallying cry for women in punk: “Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard, but I think … oh bondage, up yours!”
Since Poly Styrene’s death in 2011, her daughter Celeste Bell has worked to keep her legacy alive through books, film and exhibitions. God Save the Queens is part of Bell’s work with female creative collective Up Yours, which was formed to celebrate 50 years of punk. The group also includes Lauren Estelle Jones, a contemporary art curator and the daughter of The Clash’s Mick Jones, and Vivien Goldman, an author, academic and musician who lived through the first wave of London punk.
“We wanted to put the focus back on the women,” Bell tells Broadsheet. “The story of the women has often been overshadowed by their more famous male counterparts. These two neglected elements of punk are the women, and the art beyond music.”
The exhibition emphasises the DIY freedom that punk gave women. “Doing things yourself and not asking for permission to create, to get things started. That really could be applied to all areas of your life.”
God Save the Queens runs at The Museum of Youth Culture until November 22.
