Topless Cellist: Reading by Author Joan Rothfuss

In the 1960s, Juilliard-trained cellist Charlotte Moorman (1933–1991) became famous for her madcap (and often unclothed) performance antics. More significant is her transformative influence on contemporary performance practice and her dedication to the idea that avant-garde art should reach the widest possible audience. In Topless Cellist: The Improbable Life of Charlotte Moorman, the first book on Moorman’s life and work (2014, MIT Press), curator Joan Rothfuss rediscovers the legacy of an extraordinary American artist.