British artist mines Austin's punk rock history

For an ambitious project commissioned by Arthouse, Matt Stokes digs up the past and the present of Austin's punk scene

By Jeanne Claire van Ryzin
AMERICAN-STATESMAN ARTS WRITER
Thursday, July 24, 2008

Matt Stokes is having a much better time in Texas than the first time the British artist landed in the Lone Star State in 1996.

Back then he was overcharged at a tollbooth in Houston ("I think they heard my accent and figured I didn't know any better"), got stuck with a rental car that only had AM radio and so couldn't play the mix tapes he had brought for the long lonely drive out to Marfa, and thought he was literally driving to the end of the world as he journeyed out across the stark West Texas landscapes. Back then, Stokes was researching the work of Donald Judd, the titan of minimalist art who transformed the tiny West Texas town into a platform for his aesthetic philosophy.

Stokes thought perhaps everywhere in Texas might be as bleak and empty as Marfa.

He doesn't think so anymore. He thinks Austin is pretty cool, actually.

Stokes landed in Austin last week. The 34-year-old Newcastle-based artist has been commissioned by Arthouse, the contemporary arts organization, to create a sprawling art project, a multimedia exhibit — called "These Are the Days" — based on his artistic investigation into Austin's punk scene.

"These Are the Days" will be on view next year during South by Southwest. Stokes is currently on his third of five visits to Austin in preparation for the project.

"I'm fascinated by subcultures that emerge around certain types of music," he says over iced coffee at the Galaxy Cafe, during a sprawling interview that became two-part when a reporter forgot her camera. "I work from a point of anthropological inquiry. I'm against those types of art practices where artists parachute into a place and think they can understand it and be a part of it. There's always a danger in the end result when that happens."

Stokes doesn't see himself as a cultural carpetbagger visiting an unfamiliar landscape to grab whatever he can. He doesn't parachute. Instead, he gently inquires and observes. He spent two weeks in Austin in April going to see live music — mostly punk bands at Red 7, Room 710, Emo's and other clubs — every single night. He's spent hours at the Austin History Center where, believe it or not, lots of ephemera from Austin's live music scene ends up. He's also spent countless hours interviewing dozens and dozens of people — musicians, club owners, fans, fanzine writers, promoters — involved with various aspects of the punk subculture since it first percolated in Austin in the 1970s. Stokes has connected with people behind long-gone clubs such as Raul's, Duke's Royal Coach Inn, Liberty Lunch and Club Foot and bands such as the Big Boys, the Butthole Surfers and the Offenders.

"It's odd because some will tell you that punk ended in 1978," Stokes says. After all, that's when Johnny Rotten left the Sex Pistols. "But that's essentially when the punk scene took shape here."

Unlike their British counterparts who were rebelling against a bleak economic situation and conservative national government, Austin punks were comparatively less angry. Stokes finds fascination with the do-it-yourself ethos that characterized the Austin scene. Anyone could start a band, make their posters for a gig, post them around town and get an audience.

"There was a feeling here that everyone could be a part of (the punk scene)," Stokes says. "The idea was to enjoy yourself and not take it too seriously."

Of course for some, being a part of a scene, or a subculture as Stokes prefers to call it, was a seminal life experience, one that's been carefully preserved.

"I'm amazed at the amount of ephemeral material some people have saved over the years, and how much it clearly means to them," he says. "Literally everything they've saved in boxes — it's that important to them." Ticket stubs, posters, photos, fanzines, buttons, T-shirts.

Part of "These Are the Days" will be a display of the items that Stokes has been able to uncover in private collections or public archives. He is also putting together a multi-channel video that is his artistic response to everything he's absorbed about Austin's punk scene.

This isn't the first music subculture Stokes has mined. For "Real Arcadia," he investigated the brief phenomenon of cave raves, illegal parties that took place in England's bucolic Lake District in the 1990s and had hundreds of young people journeying from the cities to party all night. Eventually the happenings shut down (one property owner threatened to blow up a cave on his land which had attracted the parties), the organizers scattered and some fell victim to the drug subculture that surrounded the cave raves.

"I'm fascinated by how music subcultures bind people together and create very distinct social spaces for people to meet," Stokes says, who also professes to "really like almost any kind of music."

During its Austin showing, the film portion of "These Are The Days" will be shown concurrently in London. Later the entire exhibit will travel to Los Angeles.

"There's always an element of nostalgia to (a project like this)," he says. "And to some in the art world, 'nostalgia' is a dirty word. But you can't be nostalgic about something that's not your own firsthand experience. This is really a way more to reflect and re-evaluate things — an amalgamation of many experiences."

In other words, it's kind of group thing. After all, can't anyone in Austin be in a band?

jvanryzin@statesman.com; 445-3699