The glam and glitter era has never received the serious attention from historians and scholars that it deserves. But perhaps that’s precisely because it’s seen as unserious and undeserving. Its defining qualities - absurdity, frivolity, camp theatricality, trashy excess, and a rampant narcissism tending towards the monstrous - confounds the metrics by which criticism and the academy traditionally assign value and substance to pop music. Conceived by Simon Reynolds and Sukhdev Sandhu, this day-long celebration of 70s glitter rock and art pop explores the complexities and fugitive possibilities of a movement often dismissed in its own time as flashy and crude, a vacant parade of pretty boys and decadent-wannabe poseurs. Insane or inane? Rock’s fun-packed peak or a lull between the real action of the Sixties and punk? Dialogues and talks explore a variety of perspectives on this ambiguous and elusive era: was glam really punk-before-punk? Why isn’t “pretentious” a term of praise rather than a pejorative and put-down? Were the glam performers right to decide that rock was just another branch of showbiz after all? In between the discussion, a selection of rarely-seen films shoves you right into the muck and madness of the early 1970s. With: Mark Dery, Dan Fox, Vivien Goldman, Johan Kugelberg, Simon Reynolds, and many rare film screenings.
New York City, NY; NYC