UbuWeb: Exploring the avant-garde

Ubuweb is one the most dense repositories of freely accessible avant-garde art collections on the Internet today. It includes audio, video, text and image work from international artists, past and present, representing some of the foremost creators and thinkers of the modern era. The site has been running since Novemeber 1996 and continues to be a completely non-profit and volunteer-based initiative.

To the question “How do I purchase something from your site?” comes the ubu answer: “You can’t. Nothing is for sale on UbuWeb. It’s all free. We know it’s a hard idea to get used to, but there’s no lush gift shop waiting for you at the end of this museum.” Bravo. The Google Library Project would do well to take a page from Ubu’s book.

While I recommend you dive straight in and see what takes your fancy, I have compiled a short list of theatre/performance-related material that you might find of immediate interest.

• John Cage, USA | 1960s-70s
• Allan Kaprow, USA | b. 1927
• Yvonne Rainer, US | 1960s
• Merce Cunningham
• Antonin Artaud : Pour finir avec le jugement de dieu (1947)
• Samuel Beckett, 1906-1989
• Eugène Ionesco, Romanian (1909-1994)

Of personal particular interest on that list is Ionesco’s own reading of his play La Cantatrice Chauve.