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New York in the 1970's

Posted Jun 5, 2009

Swide has an exclusive peek at the opening of a new exhibition at NY's Not Fade Away Gallery that fills us with a rush of dangerous excitement and a longing for when New York meant something other than just shopping.


The looking glass through which we view history is, admittedly, rarely without its tint of rose; yet no one in their right mind would deny that New York in the 1970’s (when the city narrowly averted bankruptcy) was anything by a harrowing place, riddled with crime, filth, and tensions racial and otherwise.

But taking in the exhibit of Allan Tannenbaum’s vivid photographs of that time, one was also reminded of a rush of dangerous excitement that will likely never be duplicated.

From anti-nuke rallies and early gay pride parades, to palaces of shocking decadence like Plato’s Retreat and Studio 54, to the exhilarating subversion of punks from Patti Smith to The Clash, to outré cultural icons from Warhol to designer Rudi Gernreich, the city was alive with the sort of unchained thrill of possibility that the over-fed cultural denizens of this new age of consumerism seem utterly unable to grasp.

They were serious times, make no mistake—as the Talking Heads made clear, “This ain’t no fooling around.” But as Tannenbaums images remind us, they were also seriously bloody wild.


A hardcover book is also available from Duckworth Publishers

Posted by Ken Scrudato

 

For more on this NY exhibition see www.nfagallery.com

Source & Photo Credit: Allan Tannenbaum at the Not Fade Away Gallery

 

 

TAGS: new york in the 1970's ken scrudato not fade away gallery duckworth publishers allan tannenbaum new york photography

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