Josephine Breese

Hungry for Death is not a conventionally manageable or easy show. Documenting the history of the '70s cult band Destroy All Monsters, the travelling exhibition is a monument to the subversive group and creates an apt environment reflective of their outspoken individuality. For a band that readily admitted their 'anti-musical' production of 'ugly noise', the discordant battery of their music, erratically framed videos, flashing lights and a room splattered with red paint centering on a man-sized crucified gorilla costume at SPACE is a truly authentic experience.

It soon becomes apparent that despite operating under the terminology of a band, Destroy all Monsters were more of a radical creative collective in the broadest sense. Experimental music, film, visual and performance art (two of the band members, Mike Kelley and Jim Shaw, left to pursue solo art careers in 1976) and graphics, are approached with energetic and anarchic motivation. Alongside a selection of their films, vitrines of their publications and eclectic collections of plastic figurines, 2-D memorabilia of every variety is pinned up, swirling across the walls in suitably arching and swooping patterns.

Posters, magazines, photos, prints and clippings create a disparate collage of psychedelic juxtaposition. Snapshots of Godzilla monster movies such as the 1968 film that they derived their name from, Japanese cartoons, LSD trips and marijuana leaves, horror fiction, papier maché trash sculptures and more are squeezed together here. The exhaustive plethora of hedonistic references leap out from one another, indicating the scattering of Destroy All Monsters' inspirations and ventures. Standing apart from the identity of the '60s and all things related to mainstream popular culture, Destroy All Monsters turned to heavy metal and progressive rock with these unique added twists in pursuit of revolution.

As an exploration of an underground '70s phenomenon, Hungry for Death introduces the alternative cultural scene of Detroit ('Rock City') and Ann Arbor, Michigan, Destroy All Monsters members' university town, hub of leftist activism and home to many of their rock role models and the White Panther Party. This context is elucidated through Strange Früt: Rock Apocrypha, a loosely definable documentary, directed by band member Cary Loren. The film is a disjointed but fascinating tour of happenings in Detroit in the late '60s and early '70s, interspersed with bizarre performative tableaus. Such historical positioning throughout the exhibition is subtly arranged without formal parameters or indicators, culminating in a Freek Summit last Saturday at SPACE including Loren and other prominent figures of the era.

All this adds up to a highly over-stimulated spectacle, which can be enjoyed irrespective of music tastes, as a celebration of an extremely niche band whose music was 'not surprisingly.pretty much despised' according to Kelley. Intentionally hindering a linear understanding of the changing of Destroy All Monsters from 1973 to a reunion in 1995, the exhibition's unconventional format stands out in a way that the group would have fully endorsed. There is no room here for ambient nostalgia or romanticising as with the more accessible sounds of the '60s. The essential character of Destroy All Monsters is maintained, with two fingers held up to the mainstream.