Joy Divisions

Every decade or so, stars align to allow a city to become the center of a musical movement. Legends are born and idols combust under the scrutiny of their personal hells. Joy Divisions, a traveling exhibit featuring the music of Joy Division and artwork inspired by their music and the genesis of their name, recalls Ian Curtis' role in this tragically reoccurring phenomenon.

Just as Manchester faded as a musical center, Seattle would eventually rise. Perhaps the most chilling piece of the instillation is an ink sketch that echoes the similar role Kurt Cobain would play over a decade later. The drawing is of a monstrous personification of "love" boasting that it has done it again while standing over a pitiful crumpled mess of humanity lamenting that love had torn it apart, again.

As Joy Division's songs announce from the speakers Curtis' personal demons, fans who mostly were not born at the time of his suicide sway in the shadow of the Columbus Public Library. They had found a rock god from the past and will see a similar one rise in the future. Like Curtis and Cobain, this new god will rise in the glory of an emerging sound and self destruct in the glaring spotlight while the rest of the world continues to dance, dance, dance to the radio.