Prints, Raymond. Prints!

Someone recently told us that we appear to adopt the strays—the footloose, feral and free. After all, what’s more iconoclastic than cannabis? It continues to fuel generations of disobedients and the sometimes dejected with their creative and revolutionary ideas. Needless to say, we took it as a compliment, especially since we heard this at the Old Pal sponsored, Prints, Raymond. Prints! art show, celebrating one of our favorite punk rock painters, Raymond Pettibon.

In a tiny gallery setting at a building owned by fellow artist and sometimes collaborator, Ed Ruscha, Old Pal played host to the unveiling of a rare collection of Pettibon prints that jumped the queue in an otherwise frantic exhibition or museum setting. The intimate gathering helped tell the lineage of Pettibon’s punk rock roots—most notably for the band Black Flag—and his stream of consciousness comic-like renderings sometimes with slogans that could only come out from his bright mind and onto gallery walls.

Collectors breezed through wondering how an artist who more recently commanded the art world’s attention with over 700 works in the Big Apple’s, New Museum somehow landed on the walls of this DIY space. Even Banksy’s framer stopped by to ogle the art and tip his hat to a show that was more akin to seeing your favorite band play in a living room than trying to navigate the hot air of an art fair. For everyone involved, it truly was a declaration of independence and a reminder of the free and easy ethos of everyone involved.