{"product_id":"the-downtown-book-the-new-york-art-scene-19741984-9780691122861","title":"The Downtown Book: The New York Art Scene 1974-1984","description":"\u003cp\u003eDowntown is more than just a location  its an attitude--and in the 1970s and 80s  that attitude forever changed the face of America. This book charts the intricate web of influences that shaped the generation of experimental and outsider artists working in Downtown New York during the crucial decade from 1974 to 1984. Published in conjunction with the first major exhibition of downtown art (organized by New York Universitys Grey Art Gallery and Fales Library)  The Downtown Book brings the Downtown art scene to life  exploring everything from Punk rock to performance art.  The book probes trends that arose in the 1970s and solidified New Yorks reputation as arbiter of the postmodern American avant-garde. By 1974  the hippie euphoria of the previous decade  with its optimism  free love  and paeans to personal fulfillment  was over. In its place emerged a new kind of experimentation--in art  sex  drugs  and rock and roll. The seven essays featured here examine from different perspectives how Downtown artists constantly pushed the limits of both traditional media and the art world. Art critic Carlo McCormick addresses the energy  power  drugs  and nonstop erotic motion that propelled the scene. Music historian Bernard Gendron explores how minimalism  loft jazz  and Punk all occupied the same Downtown spaces. RoseLee Goldberg  the noted scholar and critic of performance art  looks back at ten years of its ascendancy Downtown. English professor Robert Siegle casts a critical eye on the literature of the Downtown scene. Librarian and archivist Marvin J. Taylor surveys Downtown as both geography and metaphor  and grapples with the question of how best to organize and preserve materials that often challenge the very notion of the archive. The book also includes seminal essays on the critical theories underlying Downtown art  by Brian Wallis; and on Downtown film  by Matthew Yokobosky.  The essays are intercut with personal reminiscences by such renowned pioneers of the Downtown scene as Eric Bogosian  Richard Hell  Lydia Lunch  Ann Magnuson  Michael Musto  and Martha Wilson. More than 150 striking photographs feature Downtown denizens and galleries; works by Cindy Sherman  Keith Haring  and many other artists; and hotspots such as CBGBs and Club 57. Hip and provocative  The Downtown Book provides a rare glimpse into the cauldron of the New York artistic counterculture--and the colorful characters who inhabited it.  EXHIBITION SCHEDULE: ?  Grey Art Gallery and the Fales Library  New York University January 10 - April 1  2006  The Andy Warhol Museum  Pittsburgh  Pennsylvania Mid-May to September 4  2006  Austin Museum of Art  Austin  Texas November 11  2006 - January 28  2007 (tentative dates)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45529613369397,"sku":"ByrdShop_0691122865","price":348.71,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780691122861.jpg?v=1780939045","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-downtown-book-the-new-york-art-scene-19741984-9780691122861","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}