Manhattan Poetry Video Project hosted by Lou Reed...

New York: Presented by Out There Productions, Inc & The Media Arts Foundation in Association with the NY Shakespeare Festival,, 1984. Signed by all four Poster for an event held at the Public Theatre's Anspacher Auditorium, New York City, September 14, 1984, signed in metallic ink marker pen by the four named participants. Billboard greeted the project enthusiastically: "Music video, which involves just about every form of music, has now spawned a new short-form entertainment genre: poetry video. The initial poetry video clips were recently premiered at a pair of sold out shows... hosted by Lou Reed and fellow rock poet Jim Carroll [probably best remembered now as the author of The Basketball Diaries], the Sept. 14 program, which organizers called one of the biggest poetry events in U.S. history, featured live and video renditions of works by Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman and Bob Holman. According to Rose Lesniak, executive producer of the project... the example of music video and MTV provides a way of "commercializing" poetry in performance. 'We don't want to limit the appreciation of poetry to just the academic audience, we want to take performance poets and what they have to say and communicate it to the masses'..." (13 October 1984). The event was followed by a reception at Danceteria. Library Hub has llistings for several copies of the VHS tapes, and one - Utah State University - for the programme, but none for this striking poster. Evocative souvenir of an 80s New York art scene moment, linking two major American countercultural figures. Ginsberg's portrait of "Lou Reed, Poet-musician" at the make-up table backstage for this event was published in Allen Ginsberg Photographs. Original monochrome photographic poster with titles in yellow (585 x 430 mm). Mounted and framed in a black wax frame. Minor creasing to top left-hand corner, and a few minor edge-splits and chips, but overall very good.