Everything Is Now: The 1960s New York Avant-Garde

The 1960s were an explosive time in New York: a collision of radical art, politics and performance that reshaped culture forever. In his sweeping new book “Everything Is Now: The 1960s New York Avant-Garde—Primal Happenings, Underground Movies, Radical Pop,” legendary film critic J. Hoberman charts this tumultuous decade with encyclopedic range and sharp wit.

A dizzying roll call of artists, performers, provocateurs and visionaries animate Hoberman’s narrative, which unfolds from the late 1950s Beats to the early ’70s upheavals of underground film, experimental theater, harmolodic jazz, radical protest and even the birth of rap. Drawing on memoirs, biographies, underground press accounts and his own decades at The Village Voice, Hoberman captures both the brilliance and the chaos of an unforgettable era.

On October 22, join Hoberman in conversation with Elisabeth Sussman, senior curator at the Whitney Museum, whose groundbreaking exhibitions on artists from Nan Goldin to Gordon Matta-Clark and multiple biennials have illuminated the avant-garde for contemporary audiences, and who most recently worked on the current exhibition "Sixties Surreal". Together, they will reflect on a decade defined by experimentation and upheaval — when artists dismantled conventions, tested the boundaries of free expression and reimagined what art could do in a society on the brink of transformation.

Don’t miss this chance to hear two of New York’s most incisive cultural voices revisit a revolutionary decade in the city’s history and consider the lessons that still hold true today.

The discussion will be followed by a reception and light refreshments. Onsite book sales at the Down Town Association will be facilitated by McNally Jackson.

Please note that the space is located on the second floor and can only be reached by a flight of stairs. We regret that it is not wheelchair accessible and apologize for the limitation.

J. Hoberman was, for over three decades, a film and culture critic for The Village Voice. His previous books have explored the subculture of midnight movies, the rise and fall of Yiddish-language cinema, the international Communist avant-garde, SoHo performance art and the underground filmmaker Jack Smith. His “found illusions” trilogy — which includes “The Dream Life,” “Make My Day,” and “An Army of Phantoms” — used Hollywood to refract the history of the Cold War.

Since joining the Whitney Museum as curator in 1991, Elisabeth Sussman has organized special and traveling exhibitions — most recently, Rachel Harrison Life Hack, Nick Mauss: Transmissions, Fragments of a Faith Forgotten: The Art of Harry Smith, and Sixties Surreal. She has also curated or co-curated two exhibitions which won International Association of Art Critics (AICA) annual awards for best monographic show in New York; Paul Thek: Diver, A Retrospective (2010), and Gordon Matta-Clark: “You Are the Measure” (2007). Other notable Whitney exhibitions include Mike Kelley: Catholic Tastes (1993), Nan Goldin: I’ll Be Your Mirror (1996), and the Whitney Biennial in 1993 and 2012. She held the position of Sondra Gilman Curator of Photography from 2004-2023, during which time she oversaw the Whitney’s collection of photography and the Photography Acquisition Committee. Before joining the Whitney, Sussman served as interim director (1991) and deputy director for programs (1989–91) at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, following stints as chief curator (1982–89) and curator (1976–82).

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