Image as Virus was an exhibition that ran from December 14, 2016 to January 5, 2017. OK first point to make is how ludicrous it is to schedule a two-week long exhibition at a university gallery over Xmas/New Year’s break. When your show runs for 20 days and you’re closed for 10 or even 2 of those days during regular operating hours, you really limit your outreach. And you only compound that fracture when you make two different Facebook events (one and two) and don’t specify the days you will be closed on either event listing.

Then – then! – you promote the show with what is basically false advertising. And I quote from multiple press releases,

The personal 10,000+ badge collection which populates this exhibition belongs to Kevin Pedersen, who is currently head of the Brooklyn-based record label What’s Your Rupture. The presentation has been developed by Pedersen and Sukhdev Sandhu (of Colloquium for Unpopular Culture) with the assistance of 80WSE Gallery.

So, how many badges would you expect to see on display? 10,000, right? Try 500, and I think that’s being generous.

So that’s the punk rocker in me calling you on your bullshit and not living up to your promise. But whatever! I still enjoyed the show and got to see a few gems from history.

First up a few installation shots:

A few details shots from the paper ephemera cabinet:

And now for the badges!

These New York Dolls pins are kind of incredible – I can’t recall ever seeing individual band member pins for any band:

Similarly, the ‘MADNESS’ pins running down the middle of this image are incredible – I also cannot recall ever seeing a band name spelled out across multiple pins:

And now for the bulk of the button shots. I love how some are weathered and worn and even rusted through – really aged, but kept remarkably well, similar to my own collection amassed over the years indeed. Enjoy:

stuffs