Black Mountain
Revisiting Avant-Garde
Black Mountain: An Exploration in Community, originally published in 1972, unboxed the eccentric collective that was the Black Mountain School in North Carolina, while also serving as a vehicle for author Martin Duberman to come out of the closet. Northwestern University Press recently released a reprint of Duberman’s work, and we’ve since gained a new appreciation for this often-downplayed segment of antiquity, as well as the author, himself.
The book chronicled the writers, artists, choreographers, and musicians who became the legendary framework of avant-garde in America, including Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Creeley, Franz Kline, Josef Albers, and many others.
“In his groundbreaking history, Martin Duberman uses interviews, anecdotes, and research to depict the relationships that made Black Mountain College what it was,” the synopsis reads. “Black Mountain documents the college’s twenty-three-year tenure, from its most brilliant moments of self-reinvention to its lowest moments of petty infighting. It records the financial difficulties that beleaguered the community throughout its existence and the determination it took to keep the college in operation. Duberman creates a nuanced portrait of this community so essential to the development of American arts and counterculture.”
And we can’t wait to revisit its legacy.
