UNRULY. The Body in Punk is created in collaboration with ARoS and edited by art historian and curator Marie Arleth Skov. Published alongside ARoS’ research-based exhibition by the same name, the book is far more than an exhibition catalogue. It is an independent work, a physical and image-rich archive of punk’s bodily revolt, and the result of a multi-year research project.
“punk’s questioning of the status quo was embodied in an outrageous rhetoric of the body.” Skov writes in the book’s central essay. UNRULY. The Body in Punk examines the body as punk’s most radical material: as image, stage, canvas, weapon, desire and resistance.
The book brings together contributions by leading international researchers, artists and thinkers, moving from punk’s graphic language and tattoos to feminisms, masculinities, queer experiences, GDR punk and the connections between punk, surrealism, sexuality and violence. In doing so, the publication expands the story of punk from a musical youth culture into an artistic, social and bodily revolution.
As a physical book, UNRULY. The Body in Punk draws on punk’s do-it-yourself ethics without imitating them. The publication insists on friction, rhythm and tactile weight, and on the book as an independent space for research, images and resistance.