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This page provides a brief description of each Annual Avant Garde Festival from 1969 to 1978, detailing the festival dates, venues, and some of the artists who participated. |
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The 7th Annual Avant Garde Festival was held on two islands in the East River - Wards Island, from September 28 to October 4, 1969, and Mill Rock Island, from October 26 to 31. The festival featured over 150 artists, whose works were displayed in open-air exhibitions, hung from trees, floating on the water or flying in the sky. The twin sites were used to display different types of work. Projects that were intended to be viewed from a distance - such as inflatable sculptures, a 90-foot flame-lit tower, sky art, neon sculpture, balloons pieces and night-time illuminations - were shown on Mill Rock Island. Works requiring more intimate engagement - environmental art, television art, films, jazz music, electronic music, computer murals and poetry - were shown on Wards Island. Artists included: Aldo Tambellini, Yoko Ono, Ralph Ortiz, Ernst Luker, Gary Harris, Giles Lorraine, Frank Lincoln Viner, Poppy Johnson, and Geoff Hendricks, among others. |
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The 8th Annual Avant Garde Festival was held at the 69th Regiment Infantry Armory, Lexington Avenue at 25th Street, Manhattan, on November 19, 1971. From this year onwards Howard Wise lent the support of Electronic Arts Intermix in the festival's fundraising effort. The first year of this new collaboration witnessed a remarkable expansion of the festival in size, scope, participation and audience. The festival included over one hundred works, including computer, environment, and performance art as well as music, poetry and film. Artists included: Woody & Steina Vasulka, Otto Piene, Yoko Ono, John Lennon, Geoff Hendrick, Ken Dewey, Jim McWilliams, John Reilly & Rudi Stern, Douglass Davis, Ken Dominick, Ralph Hocking, Aldo Tambellini & the Video Freex, Robert Breer, Liz Phillips and Fred Stern among others. It also features premiers of the video synthesizers of Shuya Abe & Nam June Paik and the one by Eric Siegel. |
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The 9th AAGF was held aboard the Alexander Hamilton riverboat at the South Street Seaport Museum, Pier 16, Manhattan, on October 28, 1972. The festival featured over 200 artists, including: David Nunemaker, Christo, Juan Downey, Marilyn Wood, Edith Stephen, Elaine Summers Dance Groups, William Etra, Ralph Hocking & Bob Diamond, Ken Dominick & Sherry Miller, John Reilly, Frank Gillette & Andy Mann, Jim Harithas & David Ross, Ann Tardos, Shigeko Kubota, Shridar Bapat, Vinny Novak, Joe Weintraub, Joe Weintraub, Liz Phillips, Nam June Paik, Shirley Clark & Don Syder, Woody Vasulka and Fred Stern, among others. |
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The 10th AAGF was held at Grand Central Station, aboard twenty Penn Central railroad cars on tracks 34 and 35, on December 9, 1973. The 10th festival featured 250 artists from 24 countries. Artists included: John Cage, Shirley Clarke, Don Snyder, Oliver Andrews, Antoni Miralda, Nelson Howe, Richard Rigolo & Stephen Price, Gregory Battock, Dermot Harvey, Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, Carolee Schneemann, Yoshimasa Wada & Barbara Steward, Lette Eisenhauer, Tal Streeter, John Alprin & Mark Weilboldt, Bill Fontana, Robert Wood, Ernst Lurker, Susan Milano, Aldo Tambellini, Nam June Paik, Sari Dienes, Richard Kostelanetz, Mary Lucier, Geoff Hendricks, Willard Van De Bogart, Alison Knowles and Otto Piene, among others. |
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The 11th AAGF was held at Shea Stadium in Flushing, Queens, on November 16, 1974. This festival featured over 400 artists from 24 countries, who presented works of video art, inflatable sculpture, poetry, laser imagery, electronic music, environmental art, computer art and dance. Artists included: Yoko Ono, Bob Wood, Nelson Howe, Richard Kostelanetz, Christo, Antoni Miralda, Nam June Paik, Marilyn Wood and the Celebrations Group, Richard Rigolo, Judy Mann, Cornelius Van Zeyl, Ruth Coron, Brian Sherman, Jeff Bradford, Anna Lockwood, Alison Knowles, Robert Wood, Jonathan Price, Juan Crovetto & Jerome Smith and Tal Streeter, among others. |
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The 12th Annual Avant Garde Festival was held at the Gateway National Recreation Area/Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn on September 27, 1975. The festival presented the works of over 500 artists from 25 countries. Artists included: Stephen Beck, Woody and Steina Vasulka, Nam June Paik, Ron Hays, TVTV, Shigeko Kubota, Media Bus, Susan Milano, Wendy Clarke, Marilyn Wood and the Celebration Group, Stanley Marsh, Emmett Williams, Alison Knowles, Stephen Varble, Judy Treible, Walter Gajewski, Joseph Hryvniak, Jan Van Raay, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Gary Harris, Jeni Hengel, David Numaker, Ralph Jones, and Bob Wood, among others. Jody Burns and the Museum of Holography presented an exhibition of 35 artists and scientists working in the holographic medium. |
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The 13th Annual Avant Garde Festival was held at the World Trade Center Plaza and in the One World Trade Center Mezzanine, on June 19, 1977. The festival presented works by over 600 artists from more than 25 countries. Artists include: Otto Piene, Alejandro Sina, Christo, Vera Simon, Yoko Ono, Jim McWilliams, Oliver Andrews, Virginia Gunter, Carolle Schneemann, Tal Streeter, David Nunemaker, Dennis Valinski, Philip Corner, Simone Forti, Dimitri Devyatkin, Ed Emshwiller, Larry Rivers, Storm de Hirsch, Hollis Frampton, Si Fried, Franklyn Morris, Andor Orand, Jason Eisenberg, Chris Elling, Sari Dienes, and Rick Lefrak, among others. |
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The 14th Annual Avant Garde Festival was held on the banks, bridges, house boats, river-front buildings and parks along the Charles River in the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, on May 20, 1978, as the finale of the Second Cambridge River Festival (May 14-20, 1978). This was the first time the festival was held outside New York City— the fruition of the organizers' goal to present the festival to a different community. The 14th festival featured 250 works. Artists included: Walter Wright, Meryl Blackman, Peer Bode, Yoko Ono, Stephen Benton, Herbert Mingace, William Walter, Douglas Davis, Bob Lewis, Mitchell Kriegman, Jane Wright, Barbara Kristaponis, Davidson Gigliotti, Baldo Diodato, Ernst Caramelle, Patricia Windrow, Barbara Rosenthal and Bill Creston, among others. |