New York
Related: New York music - New York intellectuals - MoMA - USA - city
Neigbourhoods: 42nd Street - Chelsea - Greenwich Village
Guggenheim museum
Unidentified picture of the New York skyline
Tramonto a New York (1980) - Gaetano Pesce
The Chelsea Hotel (2000) -
a 2000 mimic of a Berenice Abbott photograph by MrJumbo
Image sourced here. [Jan 2006]
New York City as cultural capital
New York City’s density and size, multicultural history, and wealth of arts institutions makes it the cultural capital of the United States and a global crossroads for music, film, theater, dance and visual art. Among the nation’s most important art collections are those held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art. The first and largest performing arts complex in the United States is Lincoln Center. The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs has a larger annual budget than the National Endowment for the Arts.
Tom Wolfe wrote of New York that "Culture just seems to be in the air, like part of the weather." Important cultural movements have long been part of the city’s history. The Harlem Renaissance established the African-American literary canon in the United States. The New York School of painters, which developed abstract expressionism in the post-World War II period, became the first truly original school of painting in America. African-American jazz greats likes Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald and Lena Horne found refuge in mixed communities in Queens in the segregated America of the 1940s. American modern dance developed in New York during that same time. New York was a hub for the counterculture of the 1960s. Its downtown music scene established punk rock in the United States in the 1970s. In the Bronx, meanwhile, hip-hop was emerging and would go on to take the world by storm by the 1990s. While the big-budget mainstream film industry consolidated in Hollywood, New York became the capital of American independent cinema.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a vast assemblage of historic art, while the Museum of Modern Art, Guggenheim and Whitney Museum of American Art house important collections of 20th century art. There are an additional 2,000 arts and cultural non-profits and 500 art galleries of all sizes.[13] The city’s performing arts venues are equally numerous and varied. These include the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, actually a complex of buildings housing 12 separate companies, among them Jazz at Lincoln Center, the New York City Opera, the New York Philharmonic and the New York City Ballet. Carnegie Hall is a smaller but prestigious venue. The Brooklyn Academy of Music is known for its cutting edge programming. Downtown clubs such as CBGB and the Nuyorican Poets Cafe are the city's destinations for rock, blues, jazz, mixed media and experimental theater.
New York is also the center of American theater. Broadway theatre, referring to performances in one of New York’s 39 large-scale theaters with more than 500 seats, is often considered along with London's West End to be the highest professional form of theater in the English language. Off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway productions are often more experimental and are staged in the city's many smaller theater houses. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City#Culture [Mar 2006]
Modern art
Modern art was introduced to America during World War I when a number of the artists in the Montmartre and Montparnasse Quarters of Paris, France fled the War. Francis Picabia (1879–1953), was responsible for bringing Modern Art to New York City. It was only after World War II, though, that the USA became the focal point of new artistic movements. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_art [Aug 2004]Slaves of New York (1989) - James Ivory
This movie gives a humorous and honest portrayal of the "elite" arts community in NYC, as well as a basic love story. It is particulary funny if you've ever been privy to those (arts related persons) with inflated self-worth or self-esteem. One of my favorite visual parts is during the group softball game when you get a look at the makeshift uniforms the arts community has come up with-- I guarantee you won't be able to stop laughing during parts of this scene... Also, Bernadette Peters' Broadway acting legacy shines throughout the flick. I'm about to sound like an Imposters perfume box, but.... If you liked the movies The House of Yes, Desperately Seeking Susan, and Welcome to the Dollhouse ... you'll like this! -- Reviewer: butterflygrrrl, amazon.com