The thrust of the rather ingenious new exhibition at the Barbican Centre in London, “Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art,” is that each of the clubs and cabarets included was much more than just an elaborately decorated drinking den. The show isn’t simply interested in cabarets and clubs in Modern art, or Modern art in cabarets and clubs, for that matter; this is a deeper and more thoughtful examination of the symbiosis between the two. Each of the clubs included in the show attracted the most avant-garde artists, writers, musicians, dancers, poets, and intellectuals of their eras, both as punters and performers. These venues were just as significant as the gathering places where artistic movements were cultivated as they were performance and gallery spaces. We should think of them, the curators suggest, as “total sensory experiences.”
