“New York: 1962-1964 explores a pivotal three-year period in the history of art and culture in New York City, examining how artists living and working in New York responded to their rapidly changing world, through more than 180 works of art—all made or seen in New York between 1962-1964.”
This good show at NYC’s Jewish Museum starts with rock ‘n’ roll — “Louie Louie,” “Hard Days Night,” and a mix of top forty hits play on as you walk into Room 1 of the exhibit. It ends upstairs with the Civil Rights Movement (film of the March on Washington etc.) and work by black visual artists…
One brother, though, gets action close to the top of the show. As soon as I saw colors in “The Golden Ass” (above), I jumped to it. When I found out it was by Bob Thompson I flashed on a memory of Amiri Baraka’s…
I was hanging out with Elvin Jones and this nutty painter friend of mine Bob Thompson, which is like, if you listen to Elvin play, hanging out at the Olympics or participating in the motherfuckers. Trane is playing at the Halfnote and after the last set the three of us lit out into the snow with those cats screaming at the tops of their lungs…man did we love each other that night, I mean completely, and at a real point of ecstasy…we went to Bob’s house and used up all his skag…and that shit always makes me sick, always. But we finally ended up standing on corner, Elvin and I, talking till 8:00 Am, and I was so exhausted and high and drunk by that time I slept till evening. Completely dishonest but wow we got into something other than just standing around being suffering fucking artists. Man those cats suffer on the run, which is what I dig, and take I suppose to be the truest playback of my sensibility. But not that earnest mediocrity…that calmness and stealth. Fuck that.
Baraka, Thompson, and Jones were way out of my league, but, like them, I figure art-life shouldn’t be a grind. I got into a happy conversation of my own with a woman who was digging “The Golden Ass.” We were doubling our fun until a guard shut me/us down…twice! Maybe I was too rock ‘n’ roll? Nah, that’s self-aggrandizing. But I was definitely too loud per the voice of standing-around authority. Who was not a voice of reason. The man in uniform wasn’t up for hearing my side of it. (FWIW, expressing joy at seeing “The Golden Ass” isn’t the same as showing your own!) I’m sure the guard believes he was doing what his bosses wanted when he harshed my high. So maybe some top dog at the Museum should suck on this. If you’re gonna play “Louie Louie” in your space (even at damped-down volume) and hang paintings by Bob Thompson (or young Stella), you shouldn’t expect every, ah, customer to conform to standard museum modes of “calmness and stealth.”
Me gotta go now…