Dead End Drive-In: Now Showing – American Artifact

American Artifact – The Rise Of American Rock Poster Art (Freakfilms, Inc. 2009)

 

Merle Becker did, in the last decade, something that I for one (and I’m guessing many of you too) dream of doing – quitting her day job and travelling around following her passion.

 

Becker’s passion was/is American rock poster art so, with zero funding but a wealth of enthusiasm, she set off around the states meeting and interviewing the major players in the rock poster world and fashioned them into a fascinating documentary that pinned me to the wall and gave my senses a pasting.

 

Just released in the UK via Wienerworld, American Artifact charts the history of the rock poster movement in the U.S., from its true beginning in the 1960s through to the deserved acclaim afforded these true works of art by dedicated/obsessive collectors in the present day.

 

The creation of a whole new strain of counter culture, dazzling with almost unreadable wordage and crazed graphics and colours, truly was outsider art that went hand in ink-stained hand with musicians equally as maverick in thinking.

 

As the free-spirited artists of the ’60s and ’70s were threatened by the bloated stadium rockers and incoming cock rockers of the ’80s poster/flyer art went even more lo-fi yet no less creative with Xerox machines manipulated to spit out ever more memorable anarchic advertisements as the poster movement went truly punk rock.

 

As punk morphed into grunge at the end of the ’80s and dawn of the ’90s rock poster art underwent something of a metamorphosis also. A new breed of artists like Coop, Frank Kozik and Justin Hampton dipped back into the colourful beginnings of the art form and fused that classic aesthetic to a newer, yet no less alternative collection of rock concert posters that not only command tidy sums on the secondary market but will surely grab the attention of every true rock ‘n’ roll fan.

 

This new DVD is wrapped in great artwork (you guessed it would be, right?!) and packaged to look like a CD-sized gatefold double album. That’s because there are two discs to house: the highly recommended documentary itself – that comes in at just under the ninety minute mark – and a bonus disc that features almost two hours of extras, including loads more interview footage and deleted scenes. With over thirty artist interviews (with everyone from Stanley Mouse to Art Chantry to Tara McPherson featured) in the doc itself you can imagine how much information is waiting to be absorbed here.

 

Merle Becker went back to working a regular job after finishing American Artifact but she did so knowing that she made a fine film that is guaranteed to educate people like me and you on an oft-forgotten avenue of rock mythos.

A recommended watch.

 

http://www.americanartifactmovie.com/
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To pick up your copy of ‘American Artifact: The Rise of American Rock Poster Art’ – CLICK HERE