The Velvet Forum

Looks like the Paris exhibition is going to New York https://www.nme.com/news/music/velvet-u ... rk-2366712

Is this a good exhibition? Like good enough to justify travelling to New York to see it? I'm tempted but it would be expensive...

I will be visiting NYC this fall and will attend. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to see The Feelies playing their VU tribute show.

I just went. I was in town for business.

My take - it was cool and a fun way to spend a couple of hours. I'd say that if you're in New York anyway or not very far, it's well worth checking it out. But if you need to travel to get here, I'd say it's not really worth it.

It was good, but it could have been better. Lots of photos. A few film clips of the band, and a lot *about* the band. But the organization was a bit jumbled, with a lot of the audio from one spot bleeding into another. A lot of emphasis on the Warhol years and on figures who were really peripheral (Candy Darling, Jonas Mekas, etc.).

Literally nothing on post Lou VU. Nothing on the 1993 reunion or Cartier.

They had a few cool artifacts on display like Aspen Magazine, which I'd never seen in person, and a Banana album signed by everyone, including Nico and Andy, but I felt like they could have gotten more.

I felt like it wasn't really clear who this was for. For someone who didn't know much about the band, I don't think it did a great job of explaining who they were and why they were important. And for people like us, I think there wasn't quite enough to lure us in.

All that said, I enjoyed my two hours there. So come check it out, but if this is the main reason for an expensive trip, you may just be disappointed.

Oh, one more tip - they have occasional speakers affiliated with the show. Jonas Mekas is speaking on Tuesday. I'll still be here, but to see him speak, I'd have to pay full admission for the show again. If I'd known in advance, I might have just waited until Tuesday to see the show.

I'd mainly go to see if they got any Warhol films of the band that we haven't seen yet. There are at least 3 or 4, probably more:

Tarot Cards
David Suskind show?
Tiger Hop
etc.

As well as some of Danny Williams's old footage.

Any of that? Or any Cale-era live audio recordings that we haven't heard yet?

No I didn't see anything like that. (I have seen Tarot Cards, but not there). If that's what you're expecting, I really think you'll be disappointed. There was a history of the band with actors playing Lou and Cale and Lou's sister playing herself. They're was a short recent interview with Cale. But no Holy Grails.

OK thanks for the report. Yeah, I will skip it. This might be kind of cynical of me, but the whole thing suggests a high level of commodification (which I guess is keeping with the Warhol philosophy, in a way) and suggests that rock and roll is now something of a history piece/dying or at least fossilized art form, as its prime innovators are dying off.

How was the Tarot cards movie? Was it an unwatchable mess much like Warhol's 1967 concert footage of the band at the BTP?

Here's my review of Tarot Cards, such as it is, from back when I saw it. Yes - it was an unwatchable mess, but that didn't stop me from thoroughly enjoying it!

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=145411&hilit=tarot#p175118

Cool, thanks for the link. Yeah, as a VU fiend, I'd find it interesting.

Beats me why the organizers of this VU exhibit didn't connect with the Warhol museum to borrow/copy some unseen VU footage in the archives.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultu ... ate-moment

She is more articulate than I am about my reservations about the show.