Last week saw the private opening party of the Lou Reed: Caught Between the Twisted Stars exhibit at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center in Manhattan.
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The exhibit is a massive cornucopia of almost entirely previously unseen material from the personal archives of legendary rocker, Lou Reed, who passed away in 2013.
The opening party was mostly populated by aging NYC rockers and artists, but an overwhelming feeling while traversing through the enormous, impressive, and even emotional exhibit was how inspiring it might be for young people to check out.
The fact is, the music Lou Reed created with The Velvet Underground at the end of the 1960s has remained some of the most consistently influential in Rock & Roll. To paraphrase a legendary Brian Eno quote, not a lot of people heard The Velvet Underground, but every one who did formed a band.
Reed’s solo career started off in the early 70s with some success, as “Walk on the Wild Side” became a huge hit, an outsider anthem for the ages. And he soon settled into a respected string of inventive solo albums right up until his passing.
As his wife, and highly influential artist herself, Laurie Anderson, pointed out in the short talk given at the opening event, the “Caught Between…” exhibit shows an artist consistently working and even failing at his craft – something Anderson said she finds fascinating.
She suggested listening to the audio tape where he is working out his classic 1972 song, “Perfect Day,” and how it took a few years for Reed to change the demo lyrics from “Summer Day.” There are a number of amazing audio clips like that to be heard throughout the exhibit, from Velvet’s demos to 1970s live shows, and much more.
Beyond that, the sheer mass of physical ephemera is absolutely stunning.
Vintage reel-to-reel tapes of unreleased Velvet Underground songs. A number of Reed’s guitars. Early journal writings and published poetry. High school yearbooks. Tons of vintage magazines, fanzines, posters, and other paper interests like legal docs and even petty cash receipts from tours. A basement soundscape room highlights Reed’s influential, if derided at the time, 1975 noise album, “Metal Machine Music.” The appearance in the exhibit of a previously unknown tape of similar groundbreaking tape-looped music that Reed was already working on in 1965 adds loads of layers for fanatics to ponder.
The sound room also plays some of the tai chi-inspired sounds that Reed was highly invested in towards the end of his life -- even as he was also recording with Metallica (clips of which are also in the exhibit). The proof of Reed’s wide breadth of work and influence bleeds from the walls of this exhibit.
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There’s more. Fan letters, tour books, Christmas cards between Reed and Velvet Underground drummer, Mo Tucker, and so much more…
Highly personal photos – like those of Reed and Tucker playing catch with a football in a hotel parking lot; or a charming shot of the band having a laugh during their brief, and reportedly contentious, 1993 reunion – are some of the many amazing photos that often strike right at the heart. It is those smaller moments that reveal the emotional humanity and sense of humor that exists inside the often dark, loud, and intense world of Lou Reed.
The last room features – among the mind-blowing wall of every Reed vinyl 12” released – a record shelf with many of the albums he owned. You can sift through and see if you and Reed had some similar favorites.
As a Reed fan, it is almost too much for just one visit. But even if you aren’t that aware of Reed’s oeuvre, the scattering of 1960-2010 artifacts bring to life the edges of the mainstream rock world that inspired the underground sounds of those decades, from punk to noise to grunge and beyond, and into the literary and art worlds that Reed contributed to.
The entire collection is culled from Reed’s personal archives that Anderson was entrusted with after his death. She was fortunate to get the assistance from producer and historian, Don Fleming, and a few other friends, and worked with the NY Public Library for the Performing Arts to have it all permanently stored there in 2017.
If you have a NYC library card, you can actually go in and look through some of the stuff yourself. This exhibit, though, displays – in a gorgeous, inventive, multi-room design – a large portion of that archive for everyone to experience. And what an experience!
Of course by now, The Velvet Underground and Lou Reed are in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and Reed has become the template for how to stick to your artistic guns and survive as a challenging artist in a commercial world. This groundbreaking exhibit will only inflate that reputation and influence.
“Caught Between the Twisted Stars” opens up officially to the public on June 9, 2022, and will run until March, 2023.
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