MUSIC AND POETRY NEVER DIE MUSIC AND POETRY NEVER DIE CURATED BY ALINE PUJO A strong link united John Cohen, Nat Finkelstein, Lynn Goldsmith, Françoise Janicot, Gerard Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Gerard Malanga, Alfred Leslie and Yoko Ono, and for Malanga, and Marcia Resnick: it was the intellectual avant-garde, the multidisciplinary and yet unknown musicians like Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones, and for the Beat underground art practice, and a craving for new musical trends. Sometimes filmmakers, Generation writers... Like electrocardiograms, John Cohen and Gerard Malanga captured sometimes poets or musicians, they were photographers first, both witnesses and actors the artistic pulse of this period with their cameras. Progressively, Andy Warhol’s Factory of the most vibrant artistic period in the history of art. The topic of their photography? outdid the 80 Wooster and became the epitome of an avant-garde laboratory for creation. The turning point of an era, and a genius quality of creativity that combined poetry, art Gerard Malanga, and later Nat Finkelstein, became active protagonists of this scene. They and rock ’n’ roll. These photographers showed both the intimate and public side of their lived a couple of ecstatic years at the Factory and took part in the most emblematic period subjects, and offer us an unprecedented vision of this creative burst. of “The Pope of the Pop”. In New York, starting in the 1950’s, the Beat Generation and its literary commitment to The next generation was already taking shape in the concert halls of CBGB, of Max’s, freedom of lifestyle strongly impacted America. John Cohen followed it from the start, and and at the Factory. A generation of rebellious minds flourished with filmmakers like John took photographs of militant poets and artists like Jack Kerouac, who wrote the controversial Waters and his transvestite star, an actor-singer named Divine, with musicians likes Patti novel On the Road (1959) and Allen Ginsberg, both acclaimed and criticized for his poem Smith and Johnny Thunders, and with provocative figures like Robert Mapplethorpe, Anya Howl (1956). Françoise Janicot’s, Gerard Malanga’s and Marcia Resnick’s photographs Phillips and John Waters. Gerard Malanga, Marcia Resnick and Lynn Goldsmith observed show their evolution over time and include other figures of the Beat Generation such as and took pictures of this exuberant counter-culture. They contributed to building bridges William Burroughs and Brion Gysin. between rock ’n’ roll legends and the new punk generation, between the Factory and the new conceptual and minimal art. In the 1960’s, a new intellectual revolution started in the decaying buildings of New York and in the rebuilt Europe. Even though Françoise Janicot focused on France and Europe, The photographs showcased by Caroline Smulders offer a synthetic view of the underground immortalizing radical writers and performance artists such as Paul-Armand Gette, Julien art scene of the 1950-70’s. They are a screenshot of a specific moment in the history of Blaine and Robert Filliou, the artistic experimentation was most vivid in SoHo in NYC. The art. Seen through the sharp eye of these photographers, events take up a whole new 80 Wooster Street became the emblematic place of this generation. Under Salvador Dali’s dimension, sometimes intimate, sometimes iconic. Deeply rooted in the art movements and Marcel Duchamp’s approving eyes, it became the hot spot for emerging artists like that inspired them, these photographs are the relics of an era, of actions and encounters. Jean Vergès, 2016 JOHN COHEN (Born in 1932) “My lens became the center of an equation between the visible world and the interior world.” As both a protagonist of the New-York avant-garde movement and the witness of a changing world, John Cohen defies categorization. At once photographer, musician and filmmaker, his creative quest combines an impartial documentary style with a sharp artistic vision. His pictures express his own intimate emotions but exist without him and open up our imagination. Unlike others, he does not deliver a straight propagandist message. John Cohen suggests a point of view without ever forcing it on the viewer. At the age of 25, John Cohen moved into the Tenth street art world in NYC (before SoHo existed): the temple of a diverse and vibrant avant-garde scene gathering some of the most notorious artists of the 20th century. He took part and documented many artistic encounters, in particular between the writers of the Beat Generation – to which he felt close. Through his lens, poet-writers like Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso became emblematic figures of an anti-establishment generation, which served as a model for the pacifist and disobedient counter-cultures of the 1960’s. A yet unknown musician popped up in the middle of the encounters documented by John Cohen: it was Bob Dylan. He had just arrived in New York and had not yet produced an album. During a photo shoot in John Cohen’s studio and on his roof, the young 21 year- old singer opened up with naturalness. It marked the beginning of a strong creative bond between Bob Dylan and John Cohen who was also a musician. The photographs taken on this occasion, which remained unseen for several decades, have immortalized the poet- musician at the peak of his youth and genuineness. Recognized worldwide for his many talents, John Cohen masterfully captured the New York underground world of the 1950-60’s. His photographs have been showcased in exhibitions like There is no Eye, which travelled in 11 museums, and are permanently exhibited in several international museums such as the MoMa, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the National Portrait Gallery of London. 27 photographs will be included in the Centre Pompidou’s Beat Generation this summer and other work will be shown at the Grey Art Gallery in January. The book Cheap Rents... and de Kooning will be coming out in June. John Cohen, Bob Dylan in My Loft, 1962 Silver gelatin print, printed 2012 by Sid Kaplan 10 x 11 in. / 25 x 28 cm NAT FINKELSTEIN (1933-2009) “I answered the group’s insistent desire for publicity.” Rebellious and iconoclast would be the best adjectives to describe Nat Finkelstein, a creative accomplice of the underground subversive scene. He first learned photography with the legendary director of Harper’s Bazar, Alexey Brodovitch, as well as Garry Winogrand, a street photographer in search of an aesthetic of live photography. That is how Nat Finkelstein developed his polished, yet impetuous and spontaneous style. Throughout the 1960s, Finkelstein was a successful photojournalist with Black Star and PIX photo agencies, reporting on emerging political and cultural movements in New York City. Already an established journalist, Nat Finkelstein entered the Factory in 1965 as the Media: first a witness, then a collaborator among this creative laboratory. He took pictures of the place, of Andy Warhol, and the Velvet Underground, along with iconic visitors like Bob Dylan. He also immortalized the backstage of many of Andy Warhol’s movies, including the screen test in tribute to Marcel Duchamp among others. As the author David Dalton, described, «Nat Finkelstein had this almost psychic capacity to seize the atmosphere and spirit of a place.» He hugely participated in creating the aura around the Factory, which would not have lasted over time without his photographic memories. Pop Art was such that it would not have existed without media coverage. Equipped with his Nikons and Olympus Pen, Nat Finkelstein used natural light to take pictures, looking for a visible photographic grain and a reduced scale of grey. His photographs, quite different from others taken at the time, managed to capture and draw attention on the immaterial spirit of this high place of contemporary art. This attention has now reached its highest point with the growing craze for Pop art in today’s artistic landscape, along with the inclusion of Nat Finkelstein’s pictures in the most renowned museum collections of the world, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Stedelijk Museum, the V&A Museum, the Smithsonian Institution National Portrait Gallery, to name only a few. Nat Finkelstein, Velvet Underground with Vox (variation), 1966 Printed 2005, unique B&W print from original negative, mounted on aluminium 18,5 x 12,4 in. / 47 x 31,5 cm LYNN GOLDSMITH (Born in 1948) “My work has always been about breaking limiting thought patterns.” At the age of 68, Lynn Goldsmith looks back at the 45 years she dedicated to art. Both photographer and filmmaker, her practice evolved and grew alongside the New York avant- garde scene. From Andy Warhol to Patti Smith, David Bowie and The Beatles, she met and captured on camera some of the greatest artists of the 20th century. Everybody wanted to be immortalized by her lens. She had a gift to shape people’s image, to take a shot that seized someone’s artistic persona while remaining true to one’s personality. This brilliant and attractive woman made her way through the rock ’n’ roll world of the 1970’s. Always looking for new talents to collaborate with, she witnessed and built the image of an era through her both iconic and intimate pictures. It was through her studio practice that she was able to stage artists like comedians of their own media cult. With her, Patti Smith shaped her image of rock ’n’ roll woman at the premises of the punk generation, both attractive, rebellious, and independent. Through her own sensuality, Lynn Goldsmith highlighted and questioned her muses’ sensuality. She succeeded in transcribing the inherent ambivalence of famous people, and in transforming her intimate bond with them into iconic shots.