Scenes have always fascinated me a lot. The art-revolution with cubism overlapping the English-speaking literature revolution in Paris around the 20´s is a personal favourite. Might be the good memories of going down to Shakespeare & Co for books in the spring of 2005 and the dreams of Sylvia Beach with friends. The only point of reference, besides the remarkable work produced, being the books on and about Sylvia, Gertrude Stein, Picasso and those.
Im currently reading POPism by Andy Warhol and Pat Hackett which covers the pop era from 1960-1969. Its remarkable to think about the meetings between the old abstract expressionists and the new pop artists in galleries and happenings. And as Warhol described it, they all seemed to have met one another to discuss and criticise. Its puzzling to think about what makes a scene, and what holds it together. Surely the winners, if one can call it winners, will be defining and most importantly describing the scene to the world after its been accepted and when doing that the observer will most likely get their view on things. What I wonder most is to what extent the participants know that they are in a scene, can they feel the borders, where it ends and how many people it contains.
Another interesting thing is what happens today concerning locations. In the past, I have the impression, scenes were often concentrated to some extent by a location. Be it a street, neighbourhood, bar, club or else. Will the internet be regarded as a location in that sense by later generations? or will it consist of different local groups tied together by internet creating a scene as a whole. Maybe scenes as history saw them are dead.
Ps. Corky is by far the greatest.
