Soho: The Rise and Fall of an Artist's Colony - Tapa dura

"Artist and author Kostelanetz writes with firsthand knowledge of the place and its people, tracing SoHo from its heyday as an eclectic center of artistic expression in the 1970s to its discovery by the mainstream and subsequent transformation into the pricey world of chic." -Carol J. Binkowski, "Library Journal "The chapters that focus on Nam June Paik, Meredith Monk, Richard Foreman, and other such pivotal figures offer the book's best insights into the essence of the SoHo phenomenon." -Carol J. Binkowski, "Library Journal "There is plenty of detailed description throughout about everything from startling sculpture and performance art and the design of offbeat lofts to the complicated mechanics of funding and the protocol of garbage scavenging." -Carol J. Binkowski, "Library Journal "Of particular interest to artists and New York City buffs, this savvy little history should also be appealing to those intrigued by the sociology of counterculture and the traditions of avant-garde art." -Carol J. Binkowski, "Library Journal "Books at once this informative and this much fun are rare. Here is city history--neighborhood history--at its best. What starts off looking like a "no frills" account, develops authority, presence, and drive. Read it, and the art of that time, that place will simply make more sense. It's a book I'm glad I read and am personally grateful to Kostelanetz for having written.." -Samuel R. Delany

Soho: The Rise and Fall documents how a little-known industrial neighborhood in New York became, through one of the accidents of history, a nexus of creative activity for a brief but intensive period. Such an ideal situation--entirely unplanned--could not last forever; the author shows how market forces squeezed out this art utopia, to be replaced by a shadow of its former self.