Avant-garde scene organizers depended on patronage and promotion that often failed

Evidence

Named for traditional Jewish soup dumplings, the Foundation would further Rubin’s mission to transform the world by connecting visionary artists and musicians in ever more spectacular mixed-media events. She imagined an International Cultural Birthday Party to be held in London’s Royal Albert Hall on June 16 and 17, almost exactly a year after International Poetry Incarnation. Enlisting the aid of Bernard Stollman and ESP-Disk, Rubin planned film screenings as well as performances by the Fugs, the Velvet Underground, the Chambers Brothers, and Bo Diddley. Other popular musicians—Donovan, Paul McCartney, Eric Burdon, Cass Elliot, Marianne Faithfull—were bruited too, as was Peter Fonda and, via transatlantic telephone, Ginsberg. However, Rubin was unable to raise sufficient backing. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 961

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the shelf argument that avant-gardes are produced by material conditions — here, the failure to secure funding is a case of financial infrastructure failing, not vision failing. — connects to: avant-garde shock loses its subversive force once it becomes expected and institutionalized — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 564