No Future (Then and Now)

The recently opened exhibition "Punk: Chaos to Couture" at the Met received quite a lot of criticism for having somehow sanitised punk, making it acceptable to the elites and turning its rebellious power into a pile of carefully arranged clothes. So to rediscover a bit of punk spirit, I'm posting today some images shot by photographer Stéphane Duroy.

Born in 1948, Duroy started his career as a press photographer, working for different agencies. As the years passed he moved onto personal projects focused around Europe that often turned into disenchanted documents of the 20th century, recording also the changes Berlin went through from 1989 on.

Fascinated by decadence in England, Duroy chronicled it with a project that lasted for a few years between the late '70s and the early '80s.

The results of this project were a series of images picturing miners and their kids, young punks squatting in derelict houses, unemployed people, social outcasts drinking in the streets and the backstage of a random catwalk show.

Some of the most interesting images were shot around the East End, at the time one of the poorest areas in London (the first picture featured in this post was taken there during a binmen strike), but now painfully hip and trendy.

It would be interesting to maybe rediscover some of these images in a dedicated exhibition that looked at the meaning of the “no future” slogan then and now and that wondered which are the main differences between that generation of young people without any future and young people now. It would also be interesting to see how the fashion industry turned punk slang into empty slogans to maybe print on a shirt, ending up rehabilitating the legacy of some politicians and even elevating some of them (read Margaret Thatcher) to icons of style.