Nova '78

For a 2025 avant-gardism!

The name was Nova Convention, in New York, and in 1978 it brought together the circle of William Burrough’s friends, each contributing a performance. But from Patti Smith to Laurie Anderson, from John Cage to Franz Zappa, from Brian Gysin to John Giorno, from Allen Ginsberg to Merce Cunningham, they actually were a group of mature artists paying homage to an old guru. Moreover, they probably were the last generation of artists who embodied the old spirit of avant-gardism, before postmodern attitudes would liquefy any pretention to novelty, any interest for limit-experiences. With the complicity of Rodrigo Areias, Aaron Brookner resurrects the rushes of “uncle Howard” (Howard Brookner, to whom he already dedicated a documentary portrait), while a student at the New York University. In this way he also pays homage to this passionate documentarist, who – in his short life – documented a unique moment of New York vibrant scene. However, Nova ’78 is definitely more than a celebration (of a celebration), for at least two reasons.

First: due to the rigour of its montage, that avoids superimposing a discourse in favour of immersion in the moving, undecided, improvised atmosphere of the Convention. Second: fundamentally, these literally moving images convey the spirit of the 1978 meetings that celebrated the pleasure of experimenting, more so than the performing personae, whether William Burroughs or the other stars. If this film provides such a galvanising experience, it is because of this centrality of the doing, free of any precaution, meaning-orientation or political correctness. Here, we learn how Burrough’s authority was no less than a welcoming and non-judgemental umbrella – as John Giorno lucidly recognises – that would also include blatant flops or artistic abortions (try saying that Ginsberg’s singing is not one…).

In 2025, watching this documentary is both a slap in the face and an injection of joy. A slap, because we realise how narrow-minded, moralist, and tactical our current art scene is; an injection of joy, because we realise how human, how naïvely human, were those stars of the avant-garde, and therefore how avant-gardist that we, said naïve humans, can be. As a hymn to avant-gardism in its late blossoming, where the rigidity of manifestos gave way to the simple joy for experiments, Nova ’78 is not just an accurately composed archive footage documentary, but an urgently must-see movie in 2025.