4th & 7th Annual New York Avant Garde Festivals

1966-1972, 29:25 min, color, sound

Founded and directed by Charlotte Moorman, the Avant Garde Festivals began in 1963 and featured experimental music, art, and performances in diverse sites around New York. Yalkut's rare historical documents record the 4th and 7th events. Held in Central Park in 1966, the 4th Festival included Allan Kaprow, Al Hansen, Christo, Shigeko Kubota, and Joseph Beuys, among others. The 7th Festival was held in 1969 on two islands in the East River. Yalkut documents performances on Wards Island, beneath one of Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes.

Inflatables Illustrated

Ant Farm 

1971-2003, 21:20 min, b&w and color, sound

In the late 1960s and early '70s, the Ant Farm collective pioneered the idea of inflatable structures as alternative architecture. Inflatables Illustrated offers a visual primer on how Ant Farm prepared and constructed their utopian, experimental inflatable-plastic architecture. This tape is a corollary to Ant Farm's seminal 1969 publication The Inflatocookbook, a do-it-yourself guide to inflatable architecture. Promoting interactivity, ephemerality and access through collective practice, the book and the video can be seen as early examples of what is now termed "open source."

Participation

Steina and Woody Vasulka 

1969-1971, 62:30 min, b&w, sound

Participation represents the Vasulka's experience of the New York downtown scene in the late 1960s and early '70s. In this fascinating portrait of wildly creative people, places and times, the artists use the early Portapak video system to document, among others, Don Cherry performing in Washington Square, Warhol Superstars on stage, and Jimi Hendrix in concert. This pioneering video document is a free-form time capsule of an era.

Soup & Tart

Jean Dupuy 

1974-75, 55:45 min, b&w, sound

This marathon performance soiree was organized by multimedia artist Jean Dupuy at the Kitchen in 1974. Dupuy invited over 30 downtown artists, musicians, and filmmakers to each give a two-minute performance. The audience was served a home-made dinner of soup, apple tarts and wine, followed by the performance "menu." Performers included Charles Atlas, Joan Jonas, Hannah Wilke, Gordon Matta-Clark, Richard Serra, Philip Glass and Yvonne Rainer. This rare time capsule captures the SoHo art and music scene of the early 1970s.

Water Light/Water Needle (Lake Mah Wah, NJ)

Carolee Schneemann

1966, 11:13 min, color, sound, 16 mm film on HD video

Schneemann's classic 1966 aerial "Kinetic Theatre" work was first staged at St. Mark's Church in the Bowery, with eight performers moving to a score of randomized encounter on layers of rigged ropes and pulleys. One of two video documents of this early and influential performance, this version is...