Andy Wahol & The Velvet Underground in the NYC Memory

This weekend the wife and I checked out the Velvet Underground Experience (it's not at a museum but an exhibition space). 

This exhibit is not just "about" the Velvet Undergound -- as the name denotes, it's an immerse experience that transports you back into the world of the downtown 1960s New York arts scene, the time and place from where the Velvets emerged. It gives you a good sense of the cultural excitement, the political tumult, the social experimentation, the wildness and sexiness of a very different time and city that birthed one of the greatest, most musically brilliant bands in history. There are photographs and videos of the leading cultural figures of that time, including Lou Reed, Andy Warhol, and Allan Ginsberg (you are greeted at the beginning of this exhibit by an audiovisual recording of Ginsberg reading his great poem "America"), to put you into the mood and mindset of 1960s NYC.

Throughout the exhibit you learn about how the VU came to be formed and their musical evolution. There are these wonderful booklets that you can read that are short bios of Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison and Moe Tucker -- the real Fab Four. There are also bios of the people who influenced and worked with the band, including the singer Nico. There is lots of "projection" in this exhibit, including a place where you literally lie on the ground (on pads thankfully) and look up at short films of the Velvets and The Factory's early years.

While the exhibit is amazing in many ways it also feels incomplete -- the exhibit focuses mostly on the Velvets early years and their relationship with Warhol (who only produced the band's first album). There is very little about the band's end or their penultimate album that produced perhaps the band's greatest song ever -- "Sweet Jane." Also, considering that this is one of the most influentual bands in history, the exhibit gives short shrift to its influence and legacy (there's only a wall with some posters and recordings of covers of the band's songs -- not much). Still, if you're a fan of the VU, and of this now legendary time and place, it's worth checking out.

And, if you can't get enough of Andy Warhol, you can go check out the big exhibit about him at the Whitney (I haven't seen it yet but hope to). You can also read these articles (here and here) about Andy Warhol and life at The Factory. When Warhol died in 1987, he went from man to myth -- and these articles try to seperate the two.

Perhaps it's not surprising that these exhibits are being mounted right now. The NYC of the 1960s feels like not only another time but also another planet, a world completely different from our own. Back then, NYC was a decaying city where culture was exploding. Today, the city is exploding (economically at least) but it has become culturally dull. We are no longer the city of The Factory -- we're the city of Amazon. No longer does someone like Andy Warhol define the future of NYC -- Jeff Bezos does (and he doesn't even live here!). 

And so we remember -- the history, the myth, the legacy -- of Andy Warhol and The Factory, Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, of NYC then and now -- and of a past that haunts us, for better or worse, that still shapes the city we live in.