Even in the city that never sleeps, some periods have been more vibrant than others.
Manhattan’s Jewish Museum is now putting the spotlight on the time between 1962 and 1964, “a pivotal three-year period in the history of art and culture in New York City.”
Dubbed “New York: 1962-1964 ,” the exhibit showcases paintings and sculptures by artists like Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Donald Judd and Nancy Grossman alongside everyday objects from the period like TVs, furniture and jukeboxes.
The show examines “how artists living and working in New York responded to their rapidly changing world,” marked by events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963 which culminated in Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, and the assassination of then President John F. Kennedy that same year.
According to the museum, this is the last exhibition conceived and curated by late Italian art historian Germano Celant, who passed away in 2020 at the age of 79 after contracting coronavirus.
According to the museum’s statement, ”Celant was approached in 2017 by the Museum to address its influential role in the early 1960s New York art scene during a momentous period in American history. The result is New York: 1962-64, which uses the role of Jewish Museum as the jumping-off point to examine how artists living and working in New York City responded to the events that marked this moment in time.
Organized chronologically and bookended by the International Exhibition of the New Realists exhibition at the Sidney Janis Gallery in 1962 and the 32nd Venice Biennale in 1964, New York: 1962-1964 traces a remarkable period in the history of American art when artists working in a broad range of mediums showed renewed interest in the depth and intensity of everyday life. Described as “New Realism,” “Commonism,” “Factualism,” and “Pop,” their diverse practices developed new techniques and reached new audiences.”
Programs in conjunction with New York: 1962-1964 include partnerships with Film Forum and Film at Lincoln Center this summer and a range of public programs starting in the fall.
From July 22 to August 11, Film Forum presents 1962…1963…1964, including 36 films showcasing a moment in movie history that saw the last gasps of the Hollywood studio system, some of the best work of veteran filmmakers (David Lean, Luis Buñuel, Elia Kazan, Alfred Hitchcock), and a cinema reinvigorated by a new generation that included Stanley Kubrick, Federico Fellini, Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Roman Polanski, Jacques Demy, Sergio Leone and Francis Ford Coppola. Screenings include Dr. Strangelove, Lawrence of Arabia, 81⁄2, Jules and Jim, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, A Hard Day’s Night, Cape Fear, Knife in the Water, Contempt, Cleopatra, Diary of a Chambermaid, and many others. (The Jewish Museum)
Via Reuters
