Peter Moore: The New York Avant-Garde 1960s and ’70s [FotoFocus Biennial]

As a part of New York’s blossoming art community in the early 1960s, Peter Moore (1932–1993) began what was to become an unmatched photographic archive of the defiance and spirit of the era’s Fluxus, Judson Dance Theater, and countless other happenings and performances. Moore’s work documents that heated moment in the art world when experimental performance, music, dance, and visual art intersected in radical and transformative ways.

Among the most radical were those staged by female artists, poetically preserved through Moore’s thoughtful eye. His photographs are often the sole visual records of the ephemeral events choreographed by artists like Charlotte Moorman, Lucinda Childs, Simone Forti, Anna Halprin, Deborah Hay, Joan Jonas, Alison Knowles, Yoko Ono, Yvonne Rainer, and Jackie Winsor.

Forty years later, Carl Solway Gallery presents Moore’s photographs as a pivotal historical recollection of the artists at the forefront of avant-garde experimentation during the late ’60s. Selected from his archive of more than a half-million photographs, this show presents iconic images of Charlotte Moorman, Nam June Paik, and Yoko Ono. Conceived in collaboration with Barbara Moore, the show includes black and white as well as color photographs.