The Republic of Greenwich Village: Birthplace of the American Avant-Garde, walking tour

From Man Ray and Duchamp to De Kooning, Pollock, Krasner, Warhol, Carl Andre, and Keith Haring, from Dadaists, Surrealists, Abstract Expressionists, to Conceptual theorists, the neighborhoods between 14th and Houston Streets have been a creative laboratory that has produced (and continues to produce) the finest American avant-garde artists the United States has known. Follow artist and historian Marc Kehoe through the streets of what, in January 1917, Duchamp declared to be “the Republic of Greenwich Village” and visit locations where the artists lived, worked, and partied.

Meet: Under the Washington Square Arch, Fifth Avenue/Washington Square North.

Marc Kehoe studied painting and sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art and filmmaking at the Rhode Island School of Design. An exhibiting New York City painter, he created and produced the cult favorite public access TV show The Wild Wild World of Jeff Turtletaub, and underground Super-8 films such as Destroy All Blondes, Private Secrets of Liz Taylor, Metal Madam and Revenge of the Amazons. He also produced a series of “Low-Tech” film evenings and wrote and produced a full-length muti-media extravaganza, Kapusta Descending. Marc has appeared on MTV, and starred in Schusskinder, a narrative feature film shot in Venice, Italy. He has been Art Director of the Coney Island Mermaid Parade and has exhibited his paintings at various galleries, most recently at Art of This Century in New York City. He has lived in Lower Manhattan for most of his life.

[image: Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917. Photograph  by Alfred Stieglitz]