G. B. Jones (book)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

G.B. Jones, edited by Steve LaFreniere, is a book of the drawings and artwork of G.B. Jones, published by a New York City gallery in 1996.

The book features essays and commentaries on the work of G.B. Jones by Dennis Cooper, Kevin Killian, Dodie Bellamy, Vaginal Davis, Jena von Brücker, Caroline Azar, Jeffery Kennedy, and several others.

As well as featuring her drawings, it also includes posters and still frames from her films The Troublemakers, which starred Caroline Azar and Bruce LaBruce; The Yo-Yo Gang, which starred Caroline Azar, Leslie Mah, Donna Dresch, Beverly Breckenridge, Deke Nihilson and Bruce LaBruce; and The Lollipop Generation, starring Jena von Brucker, Mark Ewert and Vaginal Davis.

The book included the record covers and posters of Fifth Column, the band G.B. is a member of, and reproductions of pages featuring writing and art from publications she was co-editor of, such as Double Bill and J.D.s, the zine that first brought her drawings to public attention. A well-known aspect of her early drawings is the appropriation of the fetish art of Tom of Finland, reinterpreting both his drawings and Vivienne Westwood's punk exploitation of them on t-shirts for the shop SEX. These are known as the Tom Girl drawings. Unlike Tom's work, in Jones' drawings the women depicted seek to continually undermine authority figures. The drawings have appeared in fanzines, magazines, and books, as well as on posters, record covers and T-shirts, and in galleries throughout North America and Europe.

Although G.B. Jones was widely available in the U.S and Europe, copies of the book were seized at the Canadian border and it was officially pronounced "Banned In Canada".