RE/Search Publications 40th anniversary roundtables! Co-hosted with Concordia University and Pro Arts Gallery and Commons

{Rebroadcasting on Pro Arts Gallery Official Youtube date TBD}

December 12th, 2020
5pm PST / 8PM EST
Free/ Donations Accepted

RE/Search Publications 40th anniversary roundtables! Co-hosted with Concordia University and Pro Arts Gallery and Commons
The Photography of RE/Search roundtable conversation features highlights from V. Vale’ s vast personal archive of over 100,000 photographs he’s taken over the years. Following J.G. Ballard’s thought of “If it wasn’t recorded, it didn’t happen,” he documented the then-nascent punk rock scene in the Bay Area, capturing informal portraits, candid images; and stunning live shots from the earliest gigs at Mabuhay Gardens since 1977.
Curated with Marian Wallace, The Photography of RE/Search previews the upcoming RE/Search 40th Anniversary exhibition at Pro Arts Gallery & COMMONS opening in 2021.

Kathy Acker, J.G. Ballard, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Lydia Lunch, The Ramones, Andy Warhol, V. Vale photographed them all. Not that he planned it this way, “It’s not intellectual taking a picture. You do it and you don’t know why–you just wanted to. Is that art?” he chuckles, “Only history can judge.”
“I had a roommate who had almost all of the RE/Search books, and I would read them...”
–– Nick Cave, musician, writer and composer

“Probably the only surviving original Punk publisher who never stopped is V. Vale, who started Search & Destroy magazine in 1977; then RE/Search magazine in 1980. Viva Vale!”
–– Nancy Peters, co-owner of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers

“One of the first people on the scene, as far as the punk rock fanzine, and really pursuing that kind of information was V. Vale. Very rarely you get a chance to meet a true intellectual, a real cerebral person. No matter how much V. Vale finds out, his curiosity is quenchless. He is unable to stop pursuing new information. He is ceaselessly fascinated by everything.”
–– Henry Rollins, musician, actor, author, speaker and presenter

“I remember seeing the RE/Search books, Modern Primitives and Pranks! They weren’t like any books I’d ever seeing before. They had a handmade look to them, sort of a do-it-yourself underground look, and such an uncensored quality. This is a really fascinating collection, Underground Living, it’s almost like a tarot deck of the powers of San Francisco.”
–– Rudy Rucker, Philip K. Dick Award-winning author of Software and Wetware