Media coverage of the exhibition A Feast of Astonishments: Charlotte Moorman and the Avant-Garde, 1960s–1980s running at The Block Museum of Art, January 26, 2016 to July 17, 2016
Art Journal: Book Review
"By asking us to regard Moorman as a constitutive force in the 1960s avant-garde, A Feast of Accomplishments was a revelation on many fronts. The galleries produced a kind of awe in viewers and listeners, owing to one’s reeducation not only in Moorman’s experimental activities but also, more crucially, in the sheer capacity and scope of those activities. The Block Museum embraced the chaos of her music and art, and in doing so, demonstrated the tenaciously collaborative way in which she lived and worked—a mode of labor with its own gendered politics. A Feast of Astonishments left little doubt: Moorman was a transformational figure in the advancement and promotion of the avant-garde in the late twentieth-century, and we should all be eager to learn more." -Nicole Woods”
"One of the things that really made me want to do it was how important it would be to address these issues today. It became a human expression, a human problem, not just some display of technology or of avant-garde art, but rather something that would intrinsically address the human condition — particularly, the American condition." -Spencer Topel in conversation with Elizabeth Garrison
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"The traveling exhibition A Feast of Astonishments: Charlotte Moorman and the Avant-Garde, 1960s-1980s opened at Salzburg's Museum der Moderne in March, bringing with it staff from University Libraries and the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art."”
"In the exhibition’s catalogue, musicologist Jason Rosenholtz-Witt details how Moorman listed multiple solutions for each of the composition’s many technical challenges. This palimpsest of possibilities helped Moorman tailor her renditions to specific contexts, whether Carnegie Hall or Johnny Carson."”
"That was about the time she was introduced to avant-garde music and fell madly and passionately head over heels in love with the avant-garde experiments of the time. From that point on, it became her mission to bring avant-garde art to the people. She wanted to make it accessible to all."”
