Writing on the wall
The style is scratchy, suggesting old-fashioned illustration, cartoon and doodle. The turquoise and purple colouring vibrates like a bad trip. Then there’s the text: fragmentary, poetic, overblown, funny spelling. This ink drawing of Joan Crawford could only be the handiwork of Raymond Pettibon.
Punk
Pettibon’s early works graced sleeves and fliers of bands such as Black Flag and Sonic Youth and self-published ’zines. Although he’s often been the subject of major museum shows, punk’s disaffection still echoes through his distinct oeuvre.
Pulp fiction
There are thousands of drawings to his name and their disorienting effect is perhaps best experienced en masse. In his unique mesh of oblique cultural satire and existential musing, Pettibon collides low and high-brow, the pulpy and the philosophical.
Bad dreams
Alongside surfers, Charles Manson and erect penises, the demon mother movie star Crawford has been a recurring subject. A femme fatale, she’s a neat symbol of the American dream gone toxic. Her image is upended by what seems both grand existential outcry and unfinished internal mutterings.
Sadie Coles HQ, W1, to 20 Aug
