The New York Art Scene, 1974-1984 (*new exhibit*)
"For over 150 years, Downtown New York has been an epicenter of creative ferment. Indeed, for New Yorkers and just about everyone else, Downtown is synonymous with experimentation. This exhibition examines the rich cross-section of artists and activities that coexisted and often overlapped in Lower Manhattan between 1974 and 1984. Emerging out of the deflated optimism of the Summer of Love and energized by the enactment of the Loft Law—which made it legal for artists to live in SoHo’s industrial spaces—the Downtown scene attracted painters, sculptors, photographers, musicians, performers, filmmakers, and writers who could afford the then-low rents of SoHo lofts and Lower East Side tenements. Downtown artists violated the gap between high art and mass culture, removed the production and reception of avant-garde art from isolation in elite circles, and directly confronted social and political concerns. Creating work that was both populist and subversive as well as utopian and raw, they irreverently pushed the limits of traditional artistic categories—visual artists were also writers, writers developed performance pieces, performers incorporated videos into their works, and everyone was in a band....Viewing the Downtown scene as both geography and metaphor, The Downtown Show demonstrates how this crucial decade radically altered American art and culture. "~Exhibition description, The Downtown Show: The New York Art Scene, 1974-1984
Last semester I had the pleasure of taking a research seminar that focused the The Downtown Collection of NYU's Fales Library Special Collection holdings. The "Downtown Collection" is a rich archive that documents the extraordinary range of art, culture, and live performance in lower Manhattan and beyond from the 1970s to the present. The collection features the complete papers of queer bohemian artists such as David Wojnarowicz and Dennis Cooper, as well as material by Jean Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Michael Wong, Peter Hujar, and many others.
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Gray Art Gallery has mounted a fascinating new exhibit entitled "The Downtown Scene: The New York Art Scene, 1974-1984" on display in the heart of NYU from January 10th to April 1, 2006. Be sure to check it out! It is playing right at 100 Washington Square East, at the corner of Washington Place (a block away from West 4th Street). In conjunction with the new exhibit, curators Lynn Gumpert and Marvin J. Taylor have also released a brand-new book (pictured above) that features essays on the artists and materials currently on display until April.
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oh wow...seems like a very intersting artistic book...I don't know about that nude guy tho...
Posted by
Waddie G. |
1/16/2006
Good Post! I was just talking about the OLD New York City...Looks like a Good Book!
Posted by
WATER |
1/16/2006
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