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Theoretical Music: No Wave, New Music and the New York Art Scene, 1978-1983
Including film screenings, panels and a concert
Sonic Youth
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Can you imagine New York without Sonic Youth? They’ve been such a formidable (and local) presence for so long that if they were to suddenly retire and move to Florida, it’d be like if the mayor of Nevada decided that the state didn’t really need all those casinos anymore.
They’ll just one of the many bands well represented the next three nights at Issue Project Room at the Old American Can Factory are dedicated to “Theoretical Music: No Wave, New Music and the New York Art Scene, 1978-1983.” The purpose of the multi-day event, put together by art historian Branden W. Joseph and musician David Grubbs, is to examine the intersections—as well as the failed encounters—of art, music and cinema in downtown Manhattan from 1978-1983.
Tickets cost $10/day, or $25 for all three. More info can be found here.
November 3, 8 p.m.
Screening of Rome ’78 (plus Q & A with the film’s director, James Nares)
British-born artist James Nares has lived and worked in New York for more than three decades. He is known both as a painter and as a filmmaker, and his films were the subject of a 2008 retrospective at Anthology Film Archives. Jim Jarmusch described Nares’s films as “luminous jewels scattered in the dirt—as varied and striking as his paintings, his photographs, and his train of thought.” As a painter, Nares uses his mastery of the balance between spontaneity and control to create a single elegant stroke that pulsates with energy, relating to Franz Kline as well as to the cartoon brushstrokes of Roy Lichtenstein. As a musician, Nares played with the Contortions and the Del-Byzanteens.
November 4, 5:30 p.m.
Panel Discussions, discussing the crossing of the New York art and music scenes
Panel One: Director Beth B, Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, contemporary artist Dan Graham, artist/critic John Miller, painter/singer/musician Taro Suzuki, moderated by Branden W. Joseph; Panel Two: Fashion designer/guitarist Nina Canal, writer/archivist Byron Coley, founder of Love of Life Orchestra (LOLO) Peter Gordon, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, author Neb Sublette, moderated by David Grubbs.
November 5, 8 p.m.