There’s a film series currently running at MoMA entitled Looking at Music: Side 2 that’s running now through 11.30.09.In the early 1970s New York was a haven for young, renegade artists, many of whom doubled as musicians and poets. Art and music cross-fertilized with a vengeance, following a stripped-down, hard-edged, anti-establishment ethos. 

Some artists plastered city walls with self-designed posters or spray-painted monikers, while others commandeered abandoned buildings, turning vacant garages into makeshift theaters for Super-8 film screenings and raucous performances. Many found the experimental music scene more vital and conducive to their contrarian ideas than the handful of contemporary art galleries in the city. They formed bands, performing in clubs and then in nonprofit art galleries. They designed and published their own records and zines and used public-access cable as a venue for media experiments and cultural debates. By the late 1970s some of these artists had opened nightclubs, and by the early 1980s others had established galleries, largely located in the East Village. This exhibition looks at the far-reaching and interconnected influence of artists and their musical and literary aspirations in the 1970s and early 1980s. It features photographers and magazines that assiduously documented the crossover between the music and art scenes of the time and highlights the harbingers of a new era of No Wave, hip-hop, house, and garage bands. These groups and activities coalesced at a time when New York, despite financial struggles, was an incubator of innovation. This time of phenomenal successes for a few artists and musicians marked the transition into a new, more commercial decade. This screening series features films made by many of these artists, along with films that capture the spirit of New York City during that tumultuous era.

Film included in the series: The Blank Generation, Taxi Driver, All Dolled Up (A New York Dolls Story), Downtown 81, Stranger Than Paradise, Deadly Art of Survival, and more.

Featured in these films are people like Basquiat, Debbie Harry, the infamous Mudd Club, Warhol hangout Max’s Kansas City, pre pre pre gentrification L.E.S., and The Talking Heads.

Click here for screening dates and times and here for info on ticketing. Film tickets can be bought in person only.

CBGB’S - Undoubtably the king of all clubs during this time and beyond . This photo was taken the day it closed RIP…..