Go on the Town With New York's Art World Stars of the 1960s

Like Paris in the 1920s, New York in the 1960s was a center of artistic innovation. As James Hoberman, adjunct professor of film and media studies at School of the Arts, shows in his book, Everything Is Now, boundaries were transgressed and new forms created. Drawing on interviews, memoirs, and the alternative press, he chronicles this collective history as it played out in coffeehouses, bars, lofts, storefront theaters, and streets.

Hoberman covers such artists as Amiri Baraka, Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, Yayoi Kusama, Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, Carolee Schneeman, Jack Smith, Andy Warhol, and more. Some were associated with specific movements—avant rock, destruction art, fluxus, free jazz, guerrilla theater, happenings, mimeographed zines, pop art, protest folk, ridiculous theater, stand-up poetry, underground comix, underground movies. Others worked on their own.

Hoberman discusses the book with Columbia News, as well his summer plans and current research.

How did this book come about? 

The 1960s New York art world has been a long-standing interest of mine. Having written a trilogy of books about Hollywood and the Cold War, I wanted to revisit the era that I grew up with.

What was it about New York in the 1960s that caused the cultural ferment you cover in the book? 

There's no one answer. After World War II, the city supplanted Paris as the center of artistic innovation. New York was a magnet, drawing ambitious young artists from all over the world. At the same time, due to its crumbling infrastructure and chaotic redevelopment, the city was relatively inexpensive, as well as exciting.

What books/films have you read/seen lately that you would recommend, and why? 

I recently read (and reviewed) Daniel Kehlmann's wonderful novel, The Director, based on the life of the German filmmaker, G.W. Pabst. Kehlmann's evocation of Pabst's mindset (he returned from Hollywood to Nazi Germany) is highly convincing. I also recommend Alexander Horwath's epic documentary, Henry Fonda for President, which provides a deep dive into America's dream life.

What's next on your reading/viewing lists? 

Summer reading: The Books of Jacob, a novel by Olga Tokarczuk. Summer viewing: Mets baseball.

What did you teach in the spring semester? 

A graduate seminar in the Film Department on documentary modes.

What are you working on now?

I'm writing a monograph on the 2009 Chinese documentary, Disorder, by Huang Weikai.