EXHIBITIONS
“My hobbie (one of them anyway),” Louis Armstrong wrote to a friend in 1953, “is using a lot of scotch tape… My hobbie is to pick out different things during what I read and piece them together and make a little story of my own.” Jazz at Lincoln Center presents an exhibition of large-scale images of these informally prepared collages: a sampling of Armstrong’s scrapbooks and, in particular, the audio tape boxes he decorated at home and on the road. Coinciding with the release of Steven Brower’s book of Armstrong’s collages, Satchmo: The Wonderful World and Art of Louis Armstrong, and with special thanks to the Louis Armstrong House Museum—which owns all of the original tape boxes and scrapbooks—this show is a whirl of color and cutouts, prepared by a master of music. “In the Cause of Happiness”—Armstrong’s phrase for his mission as a music-maker—invites viewers to ponder Armstrong’s collage aesthetic: his brilliant, witty way of piecing together found objects to tell stories of his life and others’ lives. We can hear this aesthetic in his music as well, where piecing things together to tell a marvelous, original story also was the great man’s way. On View: May 2 – September 26, 2009 Location and Hours: The Collage Aesthetic of Louis Armstrong: "In the Cause of Happiness" is located in the Peter Jay Sharp Arcade in Frederick P. Rose Hall, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, Broadway at 60th Street in New York City. Admission is free and the exhibition is open to the public Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. and Monday from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. This exhibition is made possible by a generous gift from Janice and Bob Burns. About the Louis Armstrong House Museum Previous Exhibitions: Looking at the Music: The Jazz Photography of Chuck Stewart |
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