This is Michael Maxwell with the Sioux City Public Library and you’re listening to Check It Out.
Today, I am recommending Everything is Now: the 1960s New York Avant-garde-primal Happenings, Underground Movies, and Radical Pop by J. Hoberman, a kaleidoscopic odyssey through the countercultural art world of New York City in the 1960s.
Say what you will about Baby Boomers, but you cannot deny the generation’s impact on First Amendment rights, especially our “freedom of expression”. In Everything is Now, Hoberman takes readers behind the scenes of some of the most transgressive and polarizing art ever made. Most are probably already familiar with Andy Warhol and his circle, but this book goes beyond the usual characters and into the grayer areas of an art world that was scrappy, in-your-face, and often even violent. If you doubt the power of art, read this book and see how it makes you feel.
The artists featured in Everything is Now worked amidst a counterculture movement that our country had not seen before or since, with notorious groups like the Weather Underground and the Yippies brushing up against and often crossing the boundaries of New York City’s downtown art scene.
Even if readers find themselves disgusted or otherwise put-off by the artwork Hoberman shares in Everything is Now, you can still walk away from this book with a renewed appreciation of our hard-won free speech rights and the freedom of expression we enjoy as Americans.
Check out Everything is Now: the 1960s New York Avant-garde-primal Happenings, Underground Movies, and Radical Pop by J. Hoberman at the Sioux City Public Library today!
Support for Check It Out on Siouxland Public Media comes from Avery Brothers.