
Merryn Schriever
Managing Director, Australia
Sold for AU$4,880 inc. premium
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PROVENANCE
Private collection, acquired directly from the artist
Christie's, Melbourne, 3 April 2001, lot 15
Private collection, Sydney
Formed in April of 1981, New Race was a concept band which included three members of Radio Birdman: Deniz Tek, Rob Younger and Warwick Gilbert along with Americans Ron Asheton of The Stooges and Denis 'Machine Gun Thompson of MC5. The group played one tour in Australia, the recordings forming the only album released by the group. Painted towards the end of Tim Johnson's punk works, New Race belongs to a series of works deeply engaged with the performative, anti-commercial elements of 1970s punk. In his essay on the series, Dr Chris McAuliffe describes,
'Johnson's punk works chart a personal reading of Modernism's trajectory. They show his struggle to establish a firm footing in 1970s pluralism, where earlier practices were declared prematurely dead and the birth of Postmodernism was announced with unseemly haste. For this reason, Johnson's punk works were remarkably open.'
Described as a transformative junction between Modernism and Postmodernism, Johnson's punk paintings capture the mood of a time when punk's raw energy had strong associations with creative and intellectual independence. As McAuliffe notes 'Punk appeared to promise an efflorescence of bands and venues, a politically and socially engaged music, the overthrow of an ossified music business, and a return to the raw power of rock'n'roll. A tall order in hindsight, but Johnson's punk paintings must be read in terms of what it was hoped punk might be, not what it ultimately became.' 1
1. Wayne Tunnicliffe and Julie Ewington, Tim Johnson, Painting Ideas, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney and Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 2009, p. 22