ISBN : 9782296546042
NEW YORK 1960-1970 CATCHING THE CONTEMPORARY
I chose to open my paper with this quotation from Raymond Williams'
Marxism and Literature, in order to immediately point out the peculiar
acceptation of the contemporary I will address in my analysis, which refers to a
specific time/space frame that is by all means interlocking with the artistic
processes developed within it. The contemporary, therefore, will be approached
as the here and now of a historical social formation, as living presence
attempted to be captured in its state of being, while it is affecting a complex
system of relations, beliefs and articulations of imagery within a specific
community.
I consider the 1960s decade in New York City a peculiar historical moment
when contemporary presences and processes have been not only "asserted and
reclaimed" but they worked as pivotal topics and obsessions, modeling the
ongoing reflexive representation the downtown art community produced of
itself. The City was the place where "the Sixties" were happening, as not just a
chronological era but as the trademark of a sea change: a laboratory of political,
social and artistic experime