The Selby Gallery celebrates the world of punk - the vibrant, highly collaborative and sometimes chaotic cultural movement that spanned multiple mediums through the 1970s and 80s – with a pair of exhibits, Low Fidelity and Underground Forces.

Born in New York but soon becoming an international sensation, including a notable and fruitful foothold in London, punk is today most closely associated with the music of the time. In reality, the aesthetic had many far-reaching implications in the world of visual art, fashion and philosophy.

Often rough, raw and abrasive, the movement is easily dismissed at a glance, but doing so is to misunderstand the truth of the matter and the community that created it and was in turn created by it. Low Fidelity and Underground Forces afford Selby’s visitors a closer look at the community, both in its element – on stage and rocking – and in those quiet moments before the din, artistic minds meeting with mutual respect and enthusiasm.

“You really do get that feeling that it is a culture,” said Laura Avery, director of the Selby Gallery. “It was a group of people that came together at a specific time, a specific place and they shared an attitude and this is how they expressed that attitude.”

Featuring the photographs of Bobby Grossman, Low Fidelity affords the viewer an intimate, insider’s glance into the world of punk and the colorful characters who made it what it was. Often candid but undeniably well-composed, the selection ranges from the whimsical (a series based around punkers, including David Byrne and Andy Warhol, eating Corn Flakes), to the affectionate (a smiling Anya Phillips, leatherclad in the famed CBGB) to the straight-out punk (Freddie Brathwaite looking oh so cool, defiantly puffing a cigarette in front of a No Smoking sign).

It’s a composition that resonates as genuinely heartfelt, an earnest love letter to a time of energetic collaboration and possibility, where people like Burroughs and Basquiat and John Waters could all rub shoulders and everyone seemed to be in the fight together.

In a darkened room adjoining, in front of an array of black chairs and flanked by posters bearing the likes of Henry Rollins and other bare-chested belters, Underground Forces, a trio of 90-minute compilations of musical performance, spliced with interviews and commentary, run on loop.

Presented by Jill Hoffman-Kowal, co-founder of Target Media alongside Joe Rees, one of the definitive documenters of the movement, Underground Forces provides the noisy counterpart to Grossman’s quiet moments – the raucous and rowdy but ultimately good-natured moments when it all came together on stage.

Including performances from big names like The Ramones, The Talking Heads and Iggy Pop alongside lesser-known but equal participants, the greatest takeaway from Underground Forces isn’t necessarily the music itself, although it is a treat, but the inescapable sense of community captured. One gets the impression that they’re not just standing on a stage, but riding the crest of a beautiful wave, buoyed by the love of an audience convinced it would never break.

While impossible to capture the movement in its entirety using only a handful of photos and videos, seen together, Low Fidelity and Underground Forces informs as to the hidden secret of it all, that past the anger and beyond the torn and tattered denim, punk was pure heart.

“One really goes with the other,” said Tim Jaeger, Selby Gallery assistant. “Because when you combine all of these chapters, it creates a story. And as you walk around you’re a part of this glimpse into the formation of this movement and this era.”

Selby Gallery will be hosting an opening reception August 22 at 7pm, featuring Grossman and Hoffman-Kowal. Grossman will make an additional appearance on August 21 for a reception at 7pm and Hoffman-Kowal will return on Sept. 4 at 9pm.