When
1959: The Shape of Jazz to Come
Nowadays Ornette Coleman is known for his all-embracing perspective and unusual wisdom- regarded as one of the most highly influential innovators and involuntary revolutionaries in the history of jazz music-, but once upon a time people did doubt his brilliance….
December 1960: The Chambers Street Series
On a snowy December night in 1960, in a bleak Lower West Side loft, a Japanese performer threw dry peas at her audience, whirling her long dark locks in a circular motion to create a rhythmic hum…
August 1964: The Second New York Avant Garde Festival
Imagine a percussionist clad in latex red leotards, which embolden his not too subtle penis; a conductor donned with fur ears matched only by a fur g-string; a cellist packaged in see-through gauze and a chimpanzee in a little blue skirt…
September 1964: “Taylor Mead’s Ass” and Warhol’s Minimalist Films
Taylor Mead appeared in several of Andy Warhol’s films. But his performance in “Taylor Mead’s Ass” is his least recognized work…
1967: Charles Ludlam formed the Ridiculous Theater Company
Ludlam had a dramatic falling out with John Vaccaro during rehearsals for the Ludlam’s second play “Conquest of the Universe” byVaccaro’s Playhouse of the Ridiculous…
July 1971: Names on trains: subway art in New York City
There was graffiti before Taki 183. After Taki 183, there was art. From the cave paintings at Lascaux to the World War II-era “Kilroy was Here,” humans have sought notice and notoriety by writing on walls. That was Taki 183’s reason for markering subway stations and trains throughout New York and it was getting noticed that changed graffiti from delinquency into an art form…
November, 1974: Lynda Benglis’s “Centerfold”
A woman stares at you from behind white-rimmed, cat’s eye sunglasses, posing with this body — this glistening, tanned, tight body — that won’t let you look away…
February 2001: Eating Her Art: Renee Cox and Yo Mama’s Last Supper
Almost five years before Renee Cox’s artwork arrived at the Brooklyn Museum, her large five-panel photographic project had already traveled across the world with little fanfare. After all, it was simply her re-enactment of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper…