Minor Threat

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© Generali Foundation Collection—Permanent Loan to the Museum der Moderne Salzburg

Dan Graham

Minor Threat, 1983

Documentation of Minor Threat, a "hardcore" band from Washington D.C., in a performance at CBGB's in New York Video, color, sound, 38 min 18 sec

GF0001913.00.0-1999

Artwork text

The function of both popular and extremist music in contemporary culture has long been a point of intellectual inquiry for Graham in his analyses of the social implications of cultural phenomena. Here he documents Minor Threat, a “hardcore” band from Washington D.C., in a performance at CBGB’s in New York. Distinguished from punk music in that it developed in suburban areas, hardcore, as typified here by Minor Threat, is seen by Graham as a tribal rite, a catalyst for the violence and frustration of its predominantly male, teenage audience. The direct, raw quality of Graham’s documentary style mirrors the crude energy of his young subjects and the hardcore subculture of the 1980s. (SR-KA)