Because the purchase of Act Like Nothing's Wrong involves parting with what some may feel is an excessive amount of hard-earned cash, I'll attempt to justify your impulsive purchase.

The first time I saw something of Winston's, I'll admit I was somewhat underwhelmed and yet taken in by his work. At the time I was booking ninety to a hundred performance and rock and roll groups monthly for two seminal San Francisco venues- the Mabuhay Gardens (perhaps better known as the Fab Mab) and the On Broadway Theatre.

At the time, trash cans, fences, telephone poles, and empty store windows were the billboards of the emerging graphic artists and bands trying to find an audience.

Suddenly a series of posters promoting outrageously named bands began to appear.

The posters caught my attention. Some of our staff even spent time discussing the bands, speculating whether the posters were some record company's hype campaign run amok or the work of pseudo-punks from the San Francisco Art Institute.

Years later, after an Iggy Pop concert, while a lone janitor swept up debris in the darkened theater, Winston cleared up the mystery of the bands that never came in for a booking- he'd simply invented them. Eventually, through Winston's involvement with Dead Kennedys' album covers and graphics, I came to appreciate his humor, observations and insightful commentary.

To the skeptical inspanidual's question, "But, is it art?" I say, an artist's first priority is to gain our attention. Winston Smith has done that with each image in this volume. His works adopt previously created and mass media disseminated "visual icons" that he then juxtaposes in collage arrangements. In this process, he often breaks or fractures time, space, place, and art genres creating visual stampedes. He prompts us to re-examine our previous perceptions. In so doing, he joins the roll-call of Picasso, Roy Lichtenstein, and Andy Warhol.

In some ways, Winston couldn't have existed in a pre-technological age. Today, our electronically-driven perceptions demand that artists respond almost immediately to the world around us. Winston's mode of expression is made possible only through the invention of the photo-copy machine. The word "copy" should not be used in evaluating Winston's artistic merit. It's true that he draws the components of his imagery from the littered landscape found on the printed pages of old advertising brochures, used books and dusty magazines, but it is in his unique juxtapositioning of these elements that we perceive them in a new and illuminating light.

And how will Winston spend his measly share of the money so easily parted from your wallet? Probably on a bottle of fine wine at a sidewalk cafe to be shared with some adoring groupie.

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