The Twenty-First Century

Larry Poons' The Twenty-First Century is the first book of its kind. Poons (born Tokyo, Japan,1 October 1937) lives and works in New York, as well as in Upstate New York. From 1955 to 1957 he studied composition at Boston's New England Conservatory of Music. Barnett Newman's 1959 exhibition at French & Company deeply impressed Poons: he relin- quished music studies to enrol at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Between 1966 and 1970 Poons taught at the Art Students League of New York and has continued to do so since 1997. In the early 1960s Poons upheld his passion for music as the guitarist with The Druds, a short- lived avant-garde art band. It fea- tured other prominent members of the New York art community -Walter de Maria and LaMonte Young respectively played the drums and saxophone, Patty Mucha was the lead singer while Jasper Johns wrote the lyrics.