Beatniks were members of a social movement in the mid-20th century, who subscribed to an anti-materialistic lifestyle. They rejected the conformity and consumerism of mainstream American culture and expressed themselves through various forms of art, such as literature, poetry, music, and painting. They also experimented with spirituality, drugs, sexuality, and travel. The term "beatnik" was coined by San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen in 1958, as a derogatory label for the followers of the Beat Generation, a group of influential writers and artists who emerged during the era of the Silent Generation's maturing, from as early as 1946, to as late as 1963, but the subculture was at its most prevalent in the 1950s. This lifestyle of anti-consumerism may have been influenced their generation's fuel of living in extream poverty in the Great Depression during their informitave years, seeing slightly older people serve in WW II and being influeced by the rise of the Alt-left and the spread of Communism. The name was inspired by the Russian suffix "-nik", which was used to denote members of various political or social groups. The term "beat" originally was used by Jack Kerouac in 1948 to describe his social circle of friends and fellow writers, such as Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Neal Cassady. Kerouac said that "beat" had multiple meanings, such as "beaten down", "beatific", "beat up", and "beat out". He also associated it with the musical term "beat", which referred to the rhythmic patterns of jazz, a genre that influenced many beatniks.
The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-World War II era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generationers in the 1950s, better known as Beatniks. The central elements of Beat culture are the rejection of standard narrative values, making a spiritual quest, the exploration of American and Eastern religions, the rejection of economic materialism, explicit portrayals of the human condition, experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and sexual liberation and exploration.
Theodore Joans was an American jazz poet, surrealist, trumpeter, and painter, who from the 1960s spent periods of time travelling in Europe and Africa. His work stands at the intersection of several avant-garde streams and some have seen in it a precursor to the orality of the spoken-word movement. However, he criticized the competitive aspect of "slam" poetry. Joans is known for his motto: "Jazz is my religion, and Surrealism is my point of view". He was the author of more than 30 books of poetry, prose, and collage, among them Black Pow-Wow, Beat Funky Jazz Poems, Afrodisia, Jazz is Our Religion, Double Trouble, WOW and Teducation.
Lucien Carr was a key member of the original New York City circle of the Beat Generation in the 1940s and also a convicted manslaughterer. He later worked for many years as an editor for United Press International.
The Six Gallery reading was an important poetry event that took place on Friday, October 7, 1955, at 3119 Fillmore Street in San Francisco.
Carolyn Elizabeth Robinson Cassady was an American writer and associated with the Beat Generation through her marriage to Neal Cassady and her friendships with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and other prominent Beat figures. She became a frequent character in the works of Jack Kerouac.
Conrad Marca-Relli was an American artist who belonged to the early generation of New York School Abstract Expressionist artists whose artistic innovation by the 1950s had been recognized across the Atlantic, including Paris. New York School Abstract Expressionism, represented by Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, John Ferren, Marca-Relli and others became a leading art movement of the postwar era.
The Cedar Tavern was a bar and restaurant at the eastern edge of Greenwich Village, New York City. In its heyday, known as a gathering place for avant garde writers and artists, it was located at 24 University Place, near 8th Street. It was famous in its day as a hangout of many prominent Abstract Expressionist painters and Beat writers and poets. It closed in April 1963 and reopened three blocks north in 1964, at 82 University Place, between 11th and 12th Streets.
Frederick William McDarrah was an American staff photographer for The Village Voice and an author. He is best known for documenting the cultural phenomenon known as the Beat Generation from its inception in the 1950s. In his book The Artist's World in Pictures, co-authored with Thomas B. Hess, McDarrah documented the New York art world, the New York School and the world of Abstract expressionism in New York City during the late 1950s.
John Tytell is an American writer and academic. He is professor emeritus of modern American literature at Queens College, City University of New York.
Chicago Review is a literary magazine founded in 1946 and published quarterly in the Humanities Division at the University of Chicago. The magazine features contemporary poetry, fiction, and criticism, often publishing works in translation and special features in double issues.
Timothy Swann McDarrah was a newspaper reporter and editor, gossip columnist and art gallery owner from New York City, whose life mirrored the New York tabloid stories he covered.
Abram Schlemowitz was an American sculptor, and a member of American Abstract Artists. He was a 1963 Guggenheim Fellow.
Museu Afro Brasil is a history, artistic and ethnographic museum dedicated to the research, preservation, and exhibition of objects and works related to the cultural sphere of black people in Brazil. It is a public institution held by the Secretariat for Culture of the São Paulo State and managed by the Museu Afro Brasil Association. The museum is located in Ibirapuera Park, a major urban park in São Paulo. The Manoel da Nóbrega Pavilion, designed by Oscar Niemeyer in 1959, houses the Museum. It holds around 6 thousands items and pieces including paintings, sculptures, photos, documents, and archives created between the 15th Century and the present day. The aggregation of pieces includes many works of the African and Afro-Brazilian cultural spheres, ranging from subjects and topics such as religion, labor, and art to the African Diaspora and slavery, whilst registering and affirming the historical trajectory and the African influences in the construction of the Brazilian society. The Museum also offers a diverse range of cultural and didactic activities, temporary expositions, and contains a theater and a specialized library.
Marcia Marcus is an American figurative painter of portraits, self-portraits, still life, and landscape.
Fast Speaking Music is a label founded by poet Anne Waldman and Ambrose Bye, in New York City. Releases by Fast Speaking Music have prominently featured jazz, the literary, and performance art. Its recordings have been made featuring poets, musicians, and interdisciplinary artists such as Anne Waldman, Amiri Baraka, Clark Coolidge, Meredith Monk, Akilah Oliver, Thurston Moore, Thomas Sayers Ellis, and many others. Variously associated with contemporary poetry, Conceptual Poetics and Conceptual Art, the Beat Generation, New York School, Black Arts Movement, New American Poetry, Nuyorican Poetry, Abstraction, Dematerialized Art, rock & roll, jazz, and experimental music and cinema, artists in the Fast Speaking Music catalog have roots that stretch across a broad spectrum of disciplines and art practices ranging from letters to music, dance, film and visual arts. Musicians featured on the label include Daniel Carter, Ha-Yang Kim, Devin Brahja Waldman, Max Davies, and Thurston Moore.
Atta Kwami was a Ghanaian painter, printmaker, independent art historian and curator. He was educated and taught at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana, and in the United Kingdom. He created works that improvise form and colour and speak to uniquely Ghanaian architecture and African strip-woven textiles, including those of the Kente, the Ewe and Asante of Ghana.
Gioventù is a painting by the Brazilian painter and designer Eliseu Visconti, from 1898.
Afro-Atlantic Histories is the title of a touring art exhibition first held jointly at the São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP) and the Instituto Tomie Ohtake in Brazil in 2018. The exhibition was made up of artworks and historical artifacts from and about the African diaspora, specifically focusing "on the 'ebbs and flows' among Africa, Americas, Caribbean and also Europe." Built around the concept of histórias, a Portuguese term that can include fictional and non-fictional narratives, Afro-Atlantic Histories explores the artistic, political, social, and personal impacts and legacies of the Transatlantic slave trade. The exhibition was hailed by critics as a landmark show of diasporic African art.
Emanoel Araújo was a Brazilian artist, art curator, and museologist. He specialized in numerous art styles, including, among others, sculpting, graphic design, and painting. He also served as the director of numerous museums in Brazil, including the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo and Museu Afro Brasil, the latter of which he established in 2004. He has recounted his work as "a collection that became one of the largest museums in Latin America".
