Skip to Main Content

Caught on Camera: Opening Celebration of the Second Buffalo Festival of the Arts Today

January 20, 2015

Opening dinner party for the Second Buffalo Festival of the Arts Today on March 2, 1968. Image courtesy of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery Digital Assets Collection and Archives, Buffalo, New York.

The Second Buffalo Festival of the Arts Today, following the first in 1965, was a 16-day celebration of art, theater, film, music, dance, writing, and dance held at the Albright-Knox, with an opening celebration on March 2, 1968.

During the opening, Thomas Hoving, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, gave an address, followed by a preview of the exhibition and dancing until 1 am. The festival also included a separate exhibition, Plus By Minus: Today’s Half-Century, of 333 works by 92 artists. The exhibition, which explored the trajectory of 50 years of non-objective art, presented an unofficial retrospective of the work of the sculptor Naum Gabo (Russian, 1890–1977). The exhibition brochure states, “This exhibition attempts to place current concerns about certain types of abstract art in useful focus.”

In addition, the festival hosted many other events, such as readings, jazz concerts, theatre performances, and dance performances, which included writing, compositions, and plays by Edward Albee, John Barth, John Cage, Buckminster Fuller, and Allen Ginsberg, among many other artists.

Opening dinner party for the Second Buffalo Festival of the Arts Today on March 2, 1968. Image courtesy of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery Digital Assets Collection and Archives, Buffalo, New York.

Opening dinner party for the Second Buffalo Festival of the Arts Today on March 2, 1968. Image courtesy of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery Digital Assets Collection and Archives, Buffalo, New York.

Opening dinner party for the Second Buffalo Festival of the Arts Today on March 2, 1968. Image courtesy of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery Digital Assets Collection and Archives, Buffalo, New York.

Opening dinner party for the Second Buffalo Festival of the Arts Today on March 2, 1968. Image courtesy of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery Digital Assets Collection and Archives, Buffalo, New York.