![]() When I came to California I lived in the Haight, which collapsed after the Summer of Love. I felt there was nothing inherently wrong with the military, and that as long as I didn’t get an order I couldn’t obey, military life would be okay. I grew up in New Jersey, got involved in radical politics in Washington D.C. Jello Biafra told me, “Stan, you’ve got to meet my new bass player, Klaus Flouride.” I replied, “Ah, my long-lost brother!” For years Klaus and I said we were identical twins, but didn’t look the same because daddy worked at Los Alamos. “It’s just a name,” I said, and stuck with it. Back in the 1970s, my girlfriend and I were on our way to the organizational meeting of Rock Against Racism and we were making up punk names. Now, as a local historian I lead Haight-Ashbury walking tours. My real name, from birth, is Kevin Kearney. “We have a rich tradition of countercultures that one can still find if one looks in the shadows of the skyscrapers, office buildings and corporate headquarters.” “By taking pictures and trusting my instincts, I documented a vital part of our city,” Hansen says. Their voices make up a chorus that accompanies Hansen’s photos and express the soul of a city that to a large extent no longer exists, except in the lingering melodies of the era, and in the hearts and minds of the survivors. Forty and more years after the interview subjects in this exhibit defined the punk era and stamped their image on the city, all but one are alive today. Hansen’s photographs feature a cast of unusual characters you will meet on the walls of this gallery. In the act of rebelling and storytelling with uncommon words and images, they reinvented San Francisco as a destination for young people who rejected the America of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, Tom Cruise and Anita Bryant, and sought the authentic, raw and lyrical. culture that sustained them through the 1980s and beyond. ![]() They came from different places, backgrounds and kinds of families, and, in San Francisco, they coalesced to create a D.I.Y. Most of the artists and performers Hansen photographed didn’t become superstars, though some had fifteen minutes of fame. Now, gazing at Hansen’s photos and listening to the voices of the people featured in this exhibit, I experience the era all over again. In the 1980s, before I met Hansen, I lived in Sonoma County, though I often visited San Francisco to witness the genesis and evolution of its underground cultures. ![]() Inspired by women who broke boundaries, she used her camera as a means of liberation. Today, Hansen says, “The Mission District, where I lived, attracted scores of artists and musicians who moved into neglected storefronts, cheap apartments and abandoned buildings-and recreated Bohemia.” She became an integral part of that world and also stood out from the often male-centric crowd. Quickly, she dove headfirst into the subterranean vortex that existed apart from North Beach and Beat Generation enclaves. She had moved to the city in 1980, to study at the San Francisco Art Institute. Hansen lived and worked in the center of the San Francisco underground. With sharp eyes, attentive ears and a big heart, photographer Jeanne M. In galleries, clubs and back alleys they created their own forms of artistic expression that spread to nearly every neighborhood in the city, though news of the subterranean world rarely made its way into Herb Caen’s columns or page one of The Chronicle. Punk rockers and their ilk boasted their own music, zines and newspapers. In the 1980s, San Francisco grew blander, wealthier and more corporate almost by the day, but a resilient multi-cultural underground thrived in nooks and crannies. ![]() Diane Feinstein sat in the mayor’s office and insisted that San Francisco wasn’t “the kook capital of the world.” Normal is what she craved-exactly what the so-called kooks were running from, whether they came from New York, Florida, Texas or beyond. George Moscone and Harvey Milk were dead. ![]()
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