On October 22, the Downtown Alliance teamed up with Altocanna at 110 Chambers St. to host an LM Live discussion on NYC’s underground arts scene in the 1960s. Senior curator of the Whitney Museum Elizabeth Sussman and critic J. Hoberman had a lively conversation about a time and a place where culture was reshaped forever, on the occasion of the release of Hoberman’s new book, “Everything Is Now: The 1960s New York Avant-Garde — Primal Happenings, Underground Movies, Radical Pop.”
Sussman drew parallels between Hoberman’s immediately essential and exhilaratingly expansive new book and “The Power Broker,” Robert Caro’s influential biography of Robert Moses. Hoberman pointed out that some important places described in his book took place in Lower Manhattan, including next door on Chambers Street where Yoko Ono once had a loft, and just up the block where experimental filmmaker Michael Snow made his important work “New York Ear and Eye Control.” Coenties Slip in Lower Manhattan was also a cultural hotspot at the time, and played home to artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Agnes Martin and Robert Indiana.
Hoberman and Sussman explained in rich detail the dynamics of New York City leading into the ‘60s, where so many of the world’s great artists resided. The city’s post-war period was a time of crisis, with industries leaving and people fleeing in droves to the suburbs. Yet, it was fertile ground for artists who found inspiration in the urban decay. Initially drawing influence from the beat generation and their performative style, a rich avant garde culture took hold throughout the decade, with “happenings” occurring all over the downtown neighborhoods.
Hoberman said that his process for writing such a sprawling history began with sketching out a comprehensive chronology. While he was able to interview some of the still-living figures from the period, he also relied heavily on issues of the Village Voice from roughly 1958 to 1972, and he made mention of the importance of the diaries of filmmaker Jonas Mekas, one of the most influential artists from the era. (Hoberman was a longtime critic at the Voice, starting in the late 1970s.)
Asked whether any artists today would be considered “radical” in the same way as those who filled the pages of his book, Hoberman pointed to video artist Arthur Jafa. Sussman admitted that museums could stand to be more adventurous to ensure that the texture of the art movement of the 1960s in New York City is not lost to time. Nonetheless, Hoberman’s book is sure to be regarded as one of the key histories of this transformative era.
