Who is popular today?

‘Titan’ of the 1960s New York scene, who developed his obsession during the war, received mainstream acclaim in his final years
Aldo Tambellini, the pioneering artist and film-maker who had an obsession with the colour black, has died aged 90. He will be remembered among other things for developing what he termed “electromedia” – the bringing together of multiple forms including strobes, dance, film, poetry and slide projection. “We have lost a titan,” said Stuart Comer, a curator at MoMA in New York.
Tambellini was born in Syracuse, New York, but grew up in Italy during the chaos of the second world war. After moving back to the US, he began his artistic career as a sculptor and painter, studying both at Syracuse University and the University of Notre Dame. But it was as a fixture on New York’s Lower East Side art scene during the early 60s that he began pushing boundaries, staging immersive multimedia performances and opening theatres in the East Village – the Gate and the Black Gate – that showed avant garde film-makers such as Kenneth Anger and Yayoi Kusama. The latter venue, converted from a loft space, was seatless, forcing viewers to sit on the floor. “You want the audience to be a part of it as much as you can,” he told the Tate in 2012. Continue reading...