Love Saves the Day: The Subterranean History of American Disco

Love Saves the Day: The Subterranean History of American Disco
June 15, 2023
- October 8, 2023
Love Saves the Day: The Subterranean History of American Disco

Opening June 15 at the Woody Guthrie Center, the new exhibit “Love Saves the Day: The Subterranean History of American Disco” explores how the oft-maligned disco genre became a groundbreaking and joyous social movement.

Beginning this summer, visitors to the Woody Guthrie Center will have the opportunity to explore the rise of contemporary DJ culture in New York City and the pivotal role that women, people of color and the LGBTQ+ community played in the generation of a new form of music-making and melting pot social experience.

Co-curated by chloē fourte and Tim Lawrence, the exhibit will feature a unique experience in the form of a re-imagining of David Mancuso’s Loft, complete with Klipschorn and La Scala speakers, a mirror ball, a ceiling of balloons and comfortable furniture. The exhibit will also display rare documentary footage from Nicky Siano’s high influential downtown party, the Gallery, and archival footage of the July 1979 “Disco Sucks!” riot at Comiskey Park in Chicago, which marked the culmination of the anti-disco movement.

The private parties and membership-based venues such as the Loft and the Gallery increased in popularity throughout the ‘70s. By operating underground, they were able to sidestep restrictive cabaret laws that mandated universal closure times, allowing the parties to last well into the next mornings, sometimes even days long. The Loft and venues like it provided consistent and safe environments for their participants to explore new music, consciously crafting spaces that foregrounded dance, community and experimental sounds. The DJs fostered in the scene became the purveyors of the new sound, a music that was definitively more Black, more Latin and more gay.

“Loves Saves the Day” will be on view from June 15 through Oct. 8.

The Woody Guthrie Center is grateful for its partnership with Klipsch Group, Inc. for this exhibition.

General Admission tickets which include access to this exhibit are on sale now.

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