In October 2025, renowned critic, journalist, academic, and cultural historian J. Hoberman visited BAMPFA to discuss his latest book, Everything Is Now: The 1960s New York Avant-Garde — Primal Happenings, Underground Movies, Radical Pop, and introduce four closely related, experimental films. 

A prominent voice in the cultural conversations surrounding art and cinema, Hoberman has spent his life reflecting on the creative world, resulting in an extensive portfolio of criticism and commentary. Over nearly four decades, he made a notable impact on The Village Voice, serving as a contributor, full-time staffer, and eventually senior film critic. Hoberman’s writings have been featured in publications such as The Guardian, The New York Review of Books, and The New York Times, and he’s lectured at esteemed institutions including Harvard University, Columbia University, and New York University. A New York native, Hoberman has situated his work in and around the city.  In Everything Is Now, Hoberman reflects on the formative films of his past and pays homage to the inspiration that laid the foundation for his fruitful career. 

Standing on BAMPFA’s stage, Hoberman was openly sentimental in his introduction of Everything Is Now and the four selected films. Hoberman appeared thoroughly flattered by the audience at this sold-out event, as he briefly described the book’s origin and the films’ relationship to it. The book draws on Hoberman’s perspective as a teenager growing up in Queens and being fascinated by the goings-on in Manhattan’s creative scene. Hoberman called Everything Is Now a “chronicle,” explaining that rather than structuring the book around influential individuals, he wished to emphasize “the history of the city.” Hoberman recognized that while rooted in early experiences and inspirations, the book offers an older, wiser vantage point that enables a greater contextualization of the time. “It does draw on an early and profound interest of mine,” he said, adding that “it's a very personal book in that sense.” Hoberman’s characterization of the book as “personal” was needless, since his sincerity, tenderness, and enthusiasm for the subject matter provided more than enough evidence. 

The night began with Ray Wisniewski’s Doomshow (1964), then Ken Jacobs’s Little Stabs at Happiness (1963), Michael Snow’s New York Eye and Ear Control (1964), and finally, Jonas Mekas’s Award Presentation to Andy Warhol (1964). Over 71 minutes, the theater space became alternately saturated with color or devoid of it, blaring or silent, hyperactive or still, as it reflected the projected images and amplified the sounds of each film.

Wisniewski’s film documents an art exhibition called “Doom Show” in New York. Featuring people dancing, spinning, wiggling, and playing in black and white, it oscillates between heartwarming and haunting. Jacobs's film is the most disjointed, composed of four distinct episodes; it is wholly absurd, capturing scenes that feel playful yet perverse. Snow’s film stars his signature “Walking Woman,” a silhouetted female figure cut-out reminiscent of a lit-up crosswalk sign, as she appears on streets, in trees, and under ocean waves. Mekas’s film depicts Andy Warhol surrounded by movie stars, including Baby Jane Holzer and Ivy Nicholson, as the group languidly consumes fruits from a basket in Warhol’s art studio, The Factory.

“Picking out the films tonight, I was wanting to draw on films which were, what I would say, interstitial. I mean, people were really inventing new forms,” said Hoberman before the screenings began, in reference to how the four films transcend conventional dimensions of genre, aesthetic, or structure. “They break so many rules that you couldn't even begin to count them,” he exclaimed, elaborating that “some of it is because they were pragmatic, and some of it was just because these people were extremely inventive or willing to allow chance to take its course.” Hoberman emphasized that the filmmakers were all young people, demonstrating immense and commendable artistic discipline, dedication, and enterprise.

BAMPFA film curator Kate MacKay joined Hoberman onstage after the screening, and the two began a conversation about the four films, a reflection on Hoberman’s book, and a rumination on the present state of criticism. In Everything Is Now, Hoberman looks back at New York City’s avant-garde art scene in the 1960s, recognizing a close relationship across medium and genre, including music, literature, film, illustration, sculpture, and performance. Although the film screening centered on the 1960s, the questions asked by the audience and MacKay illuminated thematic and cultural resonances with today’s creative climate. 

Inquiring about the process behind the book's creation, MacKay emphasized its interconnected nature, referring to its "web-like" quality. “I followed certain threads of performance in poetry and in painting and film and so on,” reasoned Hoberman, mentioning specific examples that guided his early research and reflections. Asked about his time at The Village Voice by an audience member, Hoberman expressed gratitude for the question itself and described his experience there as integral to the book’s creation: “A lot of the stuff in my book, it's just there because the people from the alternative press came and wrote about it.” Pressed about the present broadly accessible nature of filmmaking with the rise of platforms like YouTube and TikTok, Hoberman responded plainly: “The internet gives and the internet takes away.” I appreciated Hoberman’s response, recognizing that while the digital world provides greater accessibility and ease, there is likely something lost in making creation more instant and less taxing. I believe that for most things, the effort required is directly reflected in the attention, consideration, and sensitivity that must be poured into it. 

I spend a significant amount of time thinking about media consumption, particularly how to combat a growing desire for instant gratification. It is surely no coincidence that the only cure I’ve found is turning to long-form content, which requires greater effort, time, and thought to create as well as consume.   

Hoberman expressed neutrality about the highly saturated cultural landscape that films enter into now, but made sure to emphasize the beauty in how these films existed in earlier eras: “[There is] a certain integrity which I don't think you can get when it's easy to do it. And I'm not saying this as a knock, because certainly interesting stuff and important stuff can be done. But I'm saying that there's a reason why these films were thought of as underground movies. They were hard to do, both financially and in other respects. So it's a kind of triumph of the human spirit, you know, that they got made at all. It's not as if the world was really waiting for them.” When asked about his perspective on criticism, Hoberman articulated gratitude for having made a living doing it: “I felt that I was part of something larger than myself.” Like the films, books, paintings, or musical compositions that arguably weren’t asked to be created, criticism exists in the borders of art and culture without being asked to do so, offering a mirror for brave, curious onlookers to see themselves and their worlds with deeper accuracy, honesty, and truth.   

In The New Yorker’s review of Hoberman’s book, Richard Brody calls it “as jubilantly overstuffed as its subtitle.” This is similar to how I would describe the night’s essence: overwhelming and expansive in content, yet sentimental and cohesive in scheme. Leaving the theater, bracing against the night’s cold, I felt keenly aware of what we stand to learn from Hoberman’s writing and thinking: that unbridled creativity and imagination are necessary, that they warrant appreciation for their honesty, respect for their risk, and recognition for their timelessness.