JIM JOCOY – ORDER OF APPEARANCE
|
Jocoy, almost 20 years after the release of his first monograph, We’re Desperate, produced with the help of Sonic Youth front man Thurston Moore and fashion designer Marc Jacobs and widely regarded as the definitive catalogue of early West Coast punk fashion, Jim Jocoy’s archive of previously unseen photographs has been re-examined to compose. Order of Appearance is a new body of work that humanizes his young subjects as they go through their daily lives sharing the tender moments of love and loss that came to encapsulate the late 70s and early 80s as the Summer of Love slowly eroded and gave way to punks’ disaffected view of the world. “The eye of Jim Jocoy finds beauty in the wild. His photography is always in service to the magic of the devious iconoclast, exhibiting dignity to the outriders.” -Thurston Moore, musician, Sonic Youth. Order of Appearance broadens its scope to provide rarely glimpsed views of the punk scene. Quiet and intimate moments of barely post-pubescent youth applying makeup, readying themselves for an evening out, diving full stop into the dark of night. By 1977 Jim Jocoy had dropped out of school and spent his nights immersed in the burgeoning San Francisco club scene. In full embrace of the culture, Jocoy explored art in every way they could: forming bands, making photographs and films, writing poetry and publishing zines. Jocoy obsessively photographed what was in front of him. In bedrooms, bathrooms, strip clubs, at punk shows, alleyways and bars. Jocoy found outlets for showcasing his photos in his own punk/art zine, Widows and Orphans, as well as in seminal SF zines Search and Destroy, REsearch, and Punk Globe. During this time Jocoy’s photos were shown in public only twice, the first, a show held at San Francisco State University featuring the Xerox color prints he’d produce during off hours at the photocopy shop where he worked, and later as a slide show presented at William Burroughs’ 70th birthday party. Jocoy’s ability to reveal these touching moments of restless youth allows us to feel empathetic towards the bruised knees that start the book off and then laugh at the comical horror of a sunburst-yellow clownish car turned violently upside down from an accident. As a photographer, Jocoy has an uncanny capacity to make even a car wreck look like the best time ever. For more info on Order of Appearance, visit TBW books.
|
