Experimentation otherwise : The New York Avant-garde and its limits - Piekut, Benjamin (Berkeley University of California Press, 2011)
In Experimental Otherwise, Benjamin Piekut takes the reader into the heart of what we mean by experimental in avant-garde music. Focusing on one place and timeNew York City, 1964Piekut examines five disparate events: the New York Philharmonics disastrous performance of John Cages Atlas Eclipticalis; Henry Flynts demonstrations against the downtown avant-garde; Charlotte Moormans Avant Garde Festival; the founding of the Jazz Composers Guild; and the emergence of Iggy Pop. Drawing together a colorful array of personalities, Piekut argues that each of these examples points to a failure and marks a limit or boundary of canonical experimentalism. What emerges from these marginal moments is an accurate picture of the avant-garde, not as a style or genre, but as a network defined by disagreements, struggles, and exclusions.