Book Launch: Truckload of Art: the Life and Work of Terry Allen by Brendan Greaves in conversation with Anthony Elms

Book Launch: Truckload of Art: the Life and Work of Terry Allen by Brendan Greaves in conversation with Anthony Elms

Monday Apr 08, 2024
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

POWERHOUSE Arena
28 Adams Street (Corner of Adams & Water Street across from the Archway)
Brooklyn , NY 11201

Get Tickets Here!

About the Book.

In Truckload of Art, author Brendan Greaves exhaustively traces the influences that shaped Allen’s extraordinary life, from his childhood in Lubbock, Texas, spent ringside and sidestage at the wrestling matches and concerts his father promoted, to his formative art-school years in incendiary 1960s Los Angeles, and through subsequent decades doggedly pursuing his uncompromising artistic vision. With humor and critical acumen, Greaves deftly recounts how Allen built a career and cult following with pioneering independent records like Lubbock (on everything) (1979)—widely considered an archetype of alternative country—and multiyear, multimedia bodies of richly narrative, interconnected art and theatrical works, including JUAREZ (ongoing since 1968), hailed as among the most significant statements in the history of American vernacular music and conceptual art.

Drawing on hundreds of revealing interviews with Allen himself, his family members, and his many notable friends, colleagues, and collaborators—from musicians like David Byrne and Kurt Vile to artists such as Bruce Nauman and Kiki Smith—and informed by unprecedented access to the artist’s home, studio, journals, and archives, Greaves offers a poetic, deeply personal portrait of arguably the most singularly multivalent storyteller of the American West.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About the Author.

Brendan Greaves is founder and owner of the record label Paradise of Bachelors and has collaborated on numerous projects with Terry Allen, including Pedal Steal + Four Corners, for which he earned a Grammy nomination for Best Album Notes. A folklorist, essayist, and lapsed art worker, he studied at Harvard and UNC, and lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with his wife, Samantha, and son, Asa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About the Moderator.

Anthony Elms is a curator and writer. His interview with Terry Allen appears in Blank Forms 07: The Cowboy’s Dreams of Home.