This coming Sunday, June 19, two discussions at the Queens Museum will explore the relationship between the Ramones and visual art, in conjunction with the museum’s current exhibition Hey! Ho! Let’s Go! Ramones and the Birth of Punk. At 1 p.m., original contributors and editors of Punk magazine will speak on the history and influence of the fanzine that named a movement; whose hand-lettering, cartoons, and campy photonovellas (or fumetti) brought a comic-book aesthetic into rock journalism. At 3 p.m., friends and colleagues will remember late Ramones art director Arturo Vega, a pop-inflected fine artist who took charge of the band’s imagery, from their iconic logo to their imposing stage backdrops.
Among the distinguished guests are:
John Holmstrom, Punk co-founder and editor, whose illustrations appear on two Ramones albums;
Roberta Bayley, Punk principal photographer and photo editor, one of whose images from Punk was used as the Ramones’ first album cover;
Ted Riederer, artist, who worked with Arturo Vega in his final years and is now the gallery director of the non-profit art space Howl! Happening: An Arturo Vega Project;
Sandra Schulman, friend of Vega and author of the recent article “Arturo Vega and the Making of the Ramones Logo.”
Chris Stein, co-founder of the band Blondie, will join both discussions. Stein was an original contributor to Punk, where his photographs established Blondie’s place in the magazine’s tongue-in-cheek world. A regular companion of the Ramones and Vega, Stein shared their interest in branding, and helped create the visual language of punk.
Moderator Marc H. Miller, the co-curator of Hey! Ho! Let’s Go: Ramones and the Birth of Punk, is the proprietor of Gallery 98 and 98 Bowery, and was one of the curators of the 1978 exhibition Punk Art at the Washington Project for the Arts.
