LOOKING AT MUSIC: SIDE 2 @ THE MOMA
Last week, I checked out the Moma exhibit, Looking at Music: Side 2; a first floor exhibit that catalogs NYC’s stripped-down, hard-edged, anti-establishment, experimental art and music scene of the late ’70s and early ’80s. The exhibit chronicles a time period in NYC when art and music were cross pollinating, when downtown artists plastered city walls with art, played in bands, squatted abandoned buildings in the east village and turned vacant garages into makeshift super 8 theaters and performance spaces. The punk ethos was alive. That energy seems to have been lost… but you can revisit it all through 120 photographs, music videos, drawings, audio recordings, publications, Super 8 films, and punk-film screenings from September-November at the Moma. This is a really great collection of punk rock memorabilia here but I just wish the exhibit had been a little longer. It was a bit of a tease and the two small rooms were just too small to leave me walking home satisfied. The photography by Dan Graham, Nan Goldin, and Jimmy DeSana and the record covers designed by Kim Gordon did make the trip worth it though. Not to mention my teenage bedroom wall fantasy. Some images i snapped from the exhibit above but check it out for yourself. Check the Looking at Music: Side 2 website for film details and show times.
