The punk movement of the 1970s to early 1980s is explored as an art movement through extensive archive research, interviews, and art historical analysis. It embodies themes of pop, pain, poetry, and presence, representing a 'no future' generation that opted to be the 'rear-guard' rather than the next avant-garde. Skov utilizes personal interviews with punk art figures from cities like London, New York, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and Berlin, including members of Die Tödliche Doris, Værkstedet Værst, and others, alongside correspondence with notable individuals such as Jon Savage and Genesis Breyer P-Orridge. The discussion draws heavily from the protagonists' private archives, as well as significant public events like the Prostitution exhibition at the ICA in London in 1976 and Die Große Untergangsshow in West-Berlin in 1981. Various media are examined, including paintings, collages, zines, installations, and body art. A key focus is the pivotal role of history in punk, highlighting its rejection of the progress narrative promoted on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The thesis posits that punks identified as rear-guards, a term coined by Danish punks in 1981, emphasizing their rejection of the avant-garde's inherent progressivism in a "no future" context.
