DOWNTOWN MANHATTAN ART SCENES SUBJECT OF TALK AT RAGO AUCTIONS ON NOVEMBER 2    

Lambertville, NJ:  The Rago Arts and Auction Center hosts an open house on Monday, November 2, 2015, featuring Marvin J. Taylor speaking on, “Collecting Downtown: The New York Arts Scenes from the 1970s-1990s”. Mr. Taylor will discuss the experimental arts and radical culture scenes of SoHo and the East Village in New York City, which changed the contemporary art world forever. We will also be joined by Katy K., with first-hand recollections of friendship with Keith Haring and many others of the movers in the club scene.

Mr. Taylor, Director of the Fales Library and Special Collections at New York University, has documented the downtown art scenes in New York City for twenty years. In 1994, he founded the Downtown Collection, which contains over 12,000 printed books, 11,000 linear feet of manuscripts and archives, and over 100,000 media items. He was editor of The Downtown Book: The New York Art Scene, 1974-1984 (Princeton University Press, 2006), and co-curator of the exhibition “The Downtown Show: The New York Art Scene, 1974-1984.” In 2012, he edited 101 Classic Cookbooks, 501 Classic Recipes, New York: Rizzoli, a book based on the Marion Nestle Food Studies Collection at Fales—the largest food studies collection in the U.S. He continues to write about downtown art, masculinities, and queer theory.

A wine and cheese reception begins at 5 p.m. Marvin Taylor’s talk begins at 6 p.m. RSVP to 609.397.9374, ext. 119 or raac@ragoarts.com. If you are unable to rsvp in advance, please join us if you can. All are welcome.

TO THE EDITOR

High-resolution images available on request.

About Rago Arts and Auction Center

Rago is a leading U.S. auction house with $30 million in annual sales. It serves thousands of sellers and buyers yearly with a singular blend of global reach, personal service and competitive commissions for single pieces, collections and estates. Rago holds auctions of 20th/21st c. design, fine art, decorative arts, furnishings, jewelry, Asian, militaria, coins and currency, silver, historic ephemera, and ethnographic property. Rago also provides a range of appraisal services conducted by USPAP (Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice) compliant appraisers, performed to the highest standards set by the IRS, insurers and the Appraisers Association of America. Rago is located in New Jersey, midway between New York City and Philadelphia.

END OF PRESS RELEASE