Book Talk: Prudence Peiffer | The Slip

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Join us for the next installment of the Municipal Art Society + Housing Works author series, featuring a discussion with art historian, writer, and editor Prudence Peiffer, moderated by writer Joshua Jelly-Schapiro. Prudence will read from her recent publication, The Slip: The New York City Street That Changed American Art Forever, and then the pair will join in conversation about the book, art, New York City history, and much more.

Light refreshments and snacks will be available for purchase. Additionally, there will be copies of Prudence’s book available for purchase. See you at Housing Works Bookstore on Wednesday, January 10th!

Doors at 6 PM. Event at 6:15 PM. Email events@mas.org with any questions.

About the Book

The Slip: The New York City Street That Changed American Art Forever, is the never-before-told story of an obscure little street at the lower tip of Manhattan and the remarkable artists who got their start there.

For just over a decade, from 1956 to 1967, a collection of dilapidated former sail-making warehouses clustered at the lower tip of Manhattan became the quiet epicenter of the art world. Coenties Slip, a dead-end street near the water, was home to a circle of wildly talented and varied artists that included Robert Indiana, Ellsworth Kelly, Agnes Martin, James Rosenquist, Delphine Seyrig, Lenore Tawney, and Jack Youngerman. As friends and inspirations to one another, they created a unique community for unbridled creative expression and experimentation, and the works they made at the Slip would go on to change the course of American art.

Now, for the first time, Prudence Peiffer pays homage to these artists and the unsung impact their work had on the direction of late twentieth-century art and film. An ambitious and singular account of a time, a place, and a group of extraordinary people, The Slip investigates the importance of community, and makes an argument for how we are shaped by it, and how it in turns shapes our work. Read more about the book here.

Wednesday, January 10
6:00 PM — 8:00 PM

Housing Works Bookstore
126 Crosby Street
New York, NY 10012

Tickets:
Member: Free!
Non-member: Free!

Buy Tickets
  • The Slip: The New York City Street That Changed American Art Forever by Prudence Peiffer. Credit: HarperCollins.
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  • Prudence Peiffer, Featured Writer (Photo: Charles Fulford) and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, Moderator.
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Meet the Speakers

Prudence Peiffer, Featured Writer

Prudence Peiffer is an art historian, writer, and editor, specializing in modern and contemporary art. She is Director of Content at MoMA, New York. She received her PhD from Harvard University. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at Columbia University, she was a Senior Editor at Artforum magazine from 2012-2017, and Digital Content Director at David Zwirner in 2018. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, New York Review of Books, Artforum, and Bookforum, among other publications. Her book THE SLIP: The New York City Street That Changed American Art Forever (Harper 2023) was longlisted for the National Book Award, and shortlisted for the Apollo Book of the Year award.

Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, Moderator

Joshua Jelly-Schapiro is a geographer and writer whose books include Names of New York, Island People, and Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas (with Rebecca Solnit), which was awarded the Brendan Gill Prize from MAS. He is a scholar in residence at the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University, where he also teaches, and is the Director of Publishing at Pioneer Works.