“Theoretical Music: No Wave, New Music, and the New York Art Scene, 1978-1983” is a three-day event organized by art historian Branden W. Joseph and musician David Grubbs to take place at ISSUE Project Room. Its purpose is to examine the intersections as well as the failed encounters of art, music, and cinema in downtown Manhattan from 1978-1983. In addition to an evening of panel discussions among some of the most notable figures to emerge from the art, music, and film scenes of the time, the event will include a rare screening of James Nares’ no wave epic, Rome ’78 and conclude with a concert performance headlined by the first New York appearance in years by the fearless, crucial downtown band, Ut.
The last several years have been witness to an increasing number of exhibitions, books, and archival audio releases representing New York art, music, and underground cinema from the years that hinge the late 1970s and the early 1980s. The Metropolitan Museum’s exhibition The Pictures Generation, 1974-1984, the traveling retrospective Dan Graham: Beyond, Thurston Moore and Byron Coley’s No Wave: Post-Punk, Underground, New York, 1976-1980, Marc Masters’ No Wave, Tim Lawrence’s Hold on to Your Dreams: Arthur Russell and the Downtown Music Scene, 1973-1992, and the DVD release of Ericka Beckman’s 135 Grand Street New York 1979 all speak to a growing interest in historicizing this period of multidisciplinary ferment.
About the curators:
David Grubbs has released eleven solo albums, the most recent of which is Hybrid Song Box.4 (Blue Chopsticks). He is known for his cross-disciplinary collaborations with writers such as Susan Howe and Rick Moody, and with visual artists such as Anthony McCall, Angela Bulloch, Cosima von Bonin, and Stephen Prina. He is an assistant professor in the Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College and director of the graduate programs in Performance and Interactive Media Arts (PIMA).
Branden W. Joseph is Frank Gallipoli Professor of Modern and Contemporary art in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University and a founding editor of the journal Grey Room. He has written frequently on the intersection of art, music, and film, most recently in Beyond the Dream Syndicate: Tony Conrad and the Arts after Cage (Zone Books, 2008).