The Wind Up Series of After-Hours Events Celebrates Revolution of the Eye: Modern Art and the Birth of American Television on June 25

New York, NY – The Jewish Museum presents the next event in its popular series of after-hours events, The Wind Up, on Thursday, June 25, from 8pm to 11pm. Featuring art, live music, activities, and an open bar, The Wind Up is inspired by Revolution of the Eye: Modern Art and the Birth of American Television, the first exhibition to explore how avant-garde art influenced and shaped the look and content of network television in its formative years. The event will celebrate American culture and television from the 1950s and 60s with art activities and refreshments including Pop and Op Art screen-printing, a retro TV photo booth, and throwback snacks. The evening features a performance by Brooklyn-based band Mainland, whose music combines classic pop and rock stylings with nostalgic references and contemporary grit.

The event will also include a set by DJ Louie XIV, featuring a selection of throwback dance tracks from the 50s thru the 90s, and an open beer and wine bar.

Tickets for the June 25 Wind Up are $13 in advance; $18 day of event.  For further information, the public may call 212.423.3337. Tickets for this program can be purchased online at thejewishmuseum.org/thewindup. The Jewish Museum is located at Fifth Avenue and 92nd Street, Manhattan.

Mainland consists of singer/guitarist Jordan Topf, guitarist Corey Mullee, drummer Dylan Longstreet, and bassist Alex Pitta.  Since meeting at a roof party in 2010, they have crafted a blend of guitar pop and surfer melodies with a hazy, laid-back vibe with influences ranging from The Rolling Stones to The Smith Westerns to The Strokes. Mainland’s EPs include Girls Unknown (2013), Shiner (2014), and Anyway (2014). Blackbook called Mainland “…great on stage, with tons of humor and energy in each show.”

Louie XIV spins regularly at many of New York City’s premiere venues and clubs, and was chosen as one of Time Out New York’s most stylish New Yorkers. DJing has taken him around the world, with recent appearences in Miami, FL, Los Angeles, CA, Auckland, New Zealand as well as in Park City, Utah for the Sundance Film Festival.  He is also a contributing culture writer for The Huffington Post and a columnist for Jonathan “Shecky” Shecter’s Medium.com collection, Cuepoint. His series, “Trapped in the Booth,” presents a semi-fictionalized version of his life as DJ published in monthly installments on Cuepoint, and is currently being developed into a television series. 

From the late 1940s to the mid-1970s, the pioneers of American television - many of them young, Jewish, and aesthetically adventurous - adopted modernism as a source of inspiration. Revolution of the Eye: Modern Art and the Birth of American Television looks at how the dynamic new medium, in its risk-taking and aesthetic experimentation, paralleled and embraced cutting-edge art and design. Highlighting the visual revolution ushered in by American television and modernist art and design of the 1950s and 1960s, the exhibition features over 260 art objects, artifacts, and clips. Fine art and graphic design, including works by Saul Bass, Marcel Duchamp, Roy Lichtenstein, Man Ray, Georgia O'Keefe, and Andy Warhol, as well as ephemera, television memorabilia, and clips from film and television, including Batman, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Ernie Kovacs Show, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, and The Twilight Zone are on view. Revolution of the Eye also examines television's promotion of avant-garde ideals and aesthetics; its facility as a promotional platform for modern artists, designers, and critics; its role as a committed patron of the work of modern artists and designers. Revolution of the Eye is on view through September 27, 2015.

Public programs are made possible by endowment support from the William Petschek Family, the Trustees of the Salo W. and Jeannette M. Baron Foundation, the late William Halo, Benjamin Zucker, the Marshall M. Weinberg Fund, with additional support from Marshall M. Weinberg, the Rita J. and Stanley H. Kaplan Foundation, the Saul and Harriet M. Rothkopf Family Foundation and Ellen Liman.  Public support is provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.