CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 9/19/2014

What Nerve! Destroy All Monsters

"In this cultural suburban wasteland, there was only isolation and a sense of being betrayed. The strange brew of avant-garde experimentation and populism of late ’60s acid rock had failed in its social promises. To someone of my age (too young to be a hippie, too old to be a punk), there was definitely a feeling of resentment at having missed the short, hedonistic flowering of this dream... it seemed as if the world had ended, and all outside communication to whatever small outposts were left was cut off. Destroy All Monsters operated in this vacuum. We truly thought we were the only ones doing what we were doing." Cary Loren's Niagara as the Giant Sphinx (1975/2011) and excerpt of a passage quoting Mike Kelley are reproduced from the chapter on Destroy All Monsters in What Nerve! Alternative Figures in American Art, 1960 to the Present.