- What people see when they see art is that when they see something that's made by hand, they see that potential for something not being perfect, for it to be clumsy, fluid, broken, accidental, go in directions it's not supposed to.

So people like things to be a little bit skewed, and that's what they're always trying to get, and that's why this ransom note looks so awesome.

(energetic punk rock music) The show, it's a history of punk, post-punk, and just kind of alternative music in Milwaukee vis-a-vis the playbills that were used to advertise those shows, but it's become honestly more than that.

It's become like a community center and like a reunion of that culture.

The vast majority is like deep into the roots of our local punk and alternative scene.

It is raw.

It's real.

It's working class.

It's not lip service.

You know, and Milwaukee has that in spades.

It's like one of the most beautiful things about this city.

And the punk scene, there's not a million producers and trillions of dollars like hanging right out of reach for him.

I mean, Milwaukee has this kind of like really pure, isolated, almost like Galapagos culture where it's allowed to do crazy things.

Most of it is like Oil Tasters, Haskels, like kind of old, like early '80s, late '70s punk.

And then it moves into some of the newer stuff because like Eric Von Munz has The Cramps and Jack White.

In the very beginning, they were collected as just an ongoing way to preserve a culture that was very organic.

A lot of 'em, they collected for the bands but didn't know the artists.

In some cases, like the artists are really, really important because they were designed as pieces of art.

Eric Von Munz, he's like an amazing, emotionally honest, connected guy.

And as an art dork, like that's what makes people good artists because they're not outside of themselves.

They're like a full point of view that's growing and changing and trying to get to something.

And those people always make great art 'cause they're growing and learning and developing, and you see it in his work.

(energetic punk rock music continues) The plan for this was to kind of keep it in situ as if it would be like on, you know, a construction site, like as people really did poster, which was irregular and all over.

And then in some cases, we curated a little bit more like a gallery.

We curated this through kind of like organically through how it felt.

We were just pulling 'em out of like an archive, and we started generally older to newer, so you're seeing that.

And so this is gonna be like, you know, '70s to newer things.

So you tend to see more production as we get into computers.

What makes a good poster?

I mean, I think some like big, bold, straightforward, but sometimes if the image is so weird and so cool, the art gets you in.

The band gets you out, you know?

I think sometimes you could say, go in really simple and say band, venue, date.

But sometimes if it's just such a rad image, like people go, "God, let's grab that poster," and then the music sinks in eventually.

For real, the people that come in here, they're true weirdo, wonderful, awesome unicorns.

I want them to look at this and go, "This is what we should be striving for.

This is the kind of thing we should want in the world."

I think we should be striving to find real, authentic culture that forces us to think about how we live better.

Of course, I want 'em to love Milwaukee punk and music and whatever, but even deeper than that, I want them to engage with things that are strange and different that keep their mind crackling and keep their feet moving in weird directions.

(energetic punk music) - [Announcer] Thanks for watching "The Arts Page."

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