A series of curated online broadcasts of audio materialfrom a selection of artists, curators and friends of the gallery
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VIII.
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Keeping Time
2019
Keeping Time is a 2019 project which celebrates the 20th anniversary of the unique story of the Capella del Barolo, a countryside chapel in the region of Le Langhe in Italy, painted by Sol LeWitt and David Tremlett in 1999. The exhibition and performance weekend took place in the Old Grapperia next to the chapel, and together with its associated double-vinyl record and publication looked at the musicality in LeWitt and Tremlett’s work by delving into their own extensive music collections, and operated as a stepping stone for new work and investigations by a younger generation of artists.
The artists involved are: Tim Bowman, Ezio Bosso, Gavin Bryars, James Cave, Babatunde Doherty (Baba Ali), Adam Gibbons, Philip Glass, Hiba Ismail, Chemutoi Ketienya with Kipsigis girls, Jason Moran, Lydia Ourahmane, Steve Reich, Caroline Shaw, Three older female singers, Keef Winter
The Keeping Time double-vinyl record and 32 page publication recounts the projects themes and includes program notes for each artist and track.
Sides A and B, 1950—2002 look at musicality in LeWitt and Tremlett’s work by delving into their own extensive music collections and finding affinities between their visual art and the work of their composer friends and contemporaries.
Keeping Time, Cappella del Barolo
SIDES C and D, 2012—2019 a younger generation of artists related to the work of LeWitt and Tremlett either with direct responses or through their exploratory combinations of visual art and architecture, with music and performance.
Keeping Time, Cappella del Barolo
Keeping Time was a Ceretto project curated by Guy Robertson and Tony Tremlett, in partnership with the Mahler & LeWitt Studios.
Link to Mahler & LeWitt residencies here.
Link to vinyl record store here.
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David Connearn
03.07.2020
Sleepy artist (a video portrait)
2018“Sometimes I’ll pretend to take a photograph while I’m actually filming the ongoing scene, recording the transition between the expectation of a momentary photograph and the growing question of why it’s taking so long. I’ll pretend to fumble around as if my phone is freezing to extend the length of this video portrait. The eventual realisation that I’m filming often prompts a comment about being duped, followed by a genuine expression to which I’ll say something like: ‘that’s the smile I was looking for”.
“We were unwinding with a variety of bottle-ends after an installation that had turned into an unexpected all-nighter. I had no idea that Name had set the camera running. Accordingly, the footage remains unedited. We slept in bubble wrap”.
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Lucy Heyward
14.07.2020
Studio Chair (in Two Parts)
2020
“I am spinning in my studio chair and thinking how everything has changed so quickly beyond belief. Being like a turntable myself, blasting these two powerful pieces of music, which could describe my changing feelings about the strange times we live in: ‘beatnik’ energy of Link Wray’s instrumental and Diamanda Galás’ terrifying mezzo-soprano vocals, with lyrics borrowed from Leviticus.
Part 1 ‘Rumble’ Link Wray 2:25 released in 1958 as a single. ‘Rumble’ remains the ‘most dangerous’ sound track ever recorded. Raw and cool. In 1958 it was banned from the airwaves in America for fear that it might incite gang violence (rumble in US slang means ‘street fight’). Link Wray was the father of distortion, fuzz and the power chord, all the main features of the modern day rock guitarist. His Native American Shawnee ancestry contributed in melding traditional tribal rhythms with the burgeoning blues. Hard to imagine an instrumental being banned as too subversive, but in 1958 it was. It was ahead of it’s time.
Part 2 ’This is the Law of the Plague’ by Diamanda Galás 11:44 From 1991 live album Plague Mass. Describing herself as ‘intravenal electroacustic voicework’, her intensity has lots to do with her Greek origin. She says: ‘Greeks pretty much scream about anything’. Trained as a concert pianist in her native San Diego, but feeling constrained by academic convention she ‘started out as a screamer with no vocal technique’ to developing three and a half octave bel canto voice, experimenting with spatial manipulations of sound. This is so different to anything I have heard before and resonates at this moment with rage and sorrow”.
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Peter Wüthrich
2015
Two Books
2015Two Books is a video piece exhibited at the gallery as part of Peter Wüthrich’s solo show of the same name in 2015. The piece consists of a series of 308 photographs of his duo-chromatic relief books, edited together using stop-frame animation, which permits each image to be visible for less than 1/10th of a second. The technique together with the video’s soundtrack of Electronica Nu Jazz produces a flicker effect where seemingly discordant geometries produce an indeterminate flux and flow of images, an orgy of colour whose effect is subliminal.
Wüthrich engages the language of the monochrome and our experience of colour through the materiality of the book to frame his continued exploration of metaphysical dualities and his narrative of struggle or “hard love” as instigator of our unfolding human drama..Books are transformed to become the naïve protagonists in a narrative defined by conflict and uncertainty, yet for Wüthrich, a narrative whose defining quality is love.
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Dean Hughes
19.06.2020
Roger Ackling & Judith Collins
1994“The MP3 is an interview with the British artist Roger Ackling with Judith Collins recorded in January 1994 and broadcast in February 1994 on BBC Radio 3. I remember listening to this in February, maybe March 1994 on a C60 cassette tape that had been made from the radio and kept in the slide library at Chelsea College of Art where I was a student and Roger was a tutor. About 5 years ago a friend of mine managed to get me a digitized copy from the BBC and sent it to me as a CD in the post. I listen to this interview a lot but it would be fair to say that since March 2020 the ideas of being still, remote, on the margins, the usefulness of an artworld (or not) and the presence and engagement with the natural world have resonated with me differently. The ideas that come out in the interview are more available to me than they were before.The accompanying image is a stick that Roger Ackling gave me at the opening of his exhibition at Cairn, Pittenweem, 2011″
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JocJonJosch
2019
Rachael Allen and Jocelyn Marchington
This conversation is between poet Rachael Allen and artist Jocelyn Marchington, member of the art collective JocJonJosch. The recording took place on a mild November day of 2019 in Soho Square prior to the launch of their book In Silence Men Fight in the Old Town Square, a painting and poetry collaboration by JocJonJosch and Rachael.
Discussing the book, the pair talk about the nature of their collaboration and what role Rachael’s relationship with artists plays in her artistic process. The experience that creative relationships, as with language and imagery, have the ability to corrupt thoughts is a feature of collaborating that both consider essential to their ways of working.
Mentioned artworks by JocJonJosch include a new body of paintings that constitute the main visual component of the book; a painting called “Blood”, 2018; a series of intestinal sculptures “Encrustations”, 2018; a video work “Dig Shovel Dig”, Aldeburgh Cliffs, 2014.
In Silence Men Fight in the Old Town Square is part of a bigger book published at the end of 2019 by JocJonJosch called Almost One. Say Again!, published by Manoir de la Ville de Martigny and Slimvolume, edited by Rye Dag Holmboe, and distributed in the UK by Cornerhouse Publishing. Rachael Allen published her first collection of poems, Kingdomland, with Faber & Faber in 2019. She is the poetry editor for Granta magazine and Granta books, and is currently an Anthony Burgess fellow at Manchester University. JocJonJosch is the English-Swiss-Czech collective of Joschi Herczeg, Jonathan Brantschen, Jocelyn Marchington.
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Langham Research Centre
05.06.2020
Muffled Ciphers
2020Muffled Ciphers is an audio-visual performance composed by members of the Langham Research Centre and is based on the writings of J. G. Ballard, particularly his novel The Atrocity Exhibition, written in 1970, and the short stories that preceded it.
The piece is divided into seven movements some of which contain several ‘moments’. The idea of ‘moments’ refers to a concise section within a larger structure that is self-contained and could be presented alone as a complete miniature. Ballard’s novel The Atrocity Exhibition is also structured in this way, with what might be described as very short stories, each with its own title. The assemblage of moments involved several timelines all running independently, yet simultaneously, to produce a multilayered temporal structure similar to that found in many of Ballard’s writings.
Sonic and visual images within Ballard’s texts inspired each of these moments. Exact descriptions of sounds, locations and actions, as well as ideas, feelings and dialogue became the starting point for the composition. Mood and atmosphere were also very important. Ballard’s narrative is often non-linear and the way time passes in his work can be pliable and elastic: sometimes expanded, sometimes compressed, sometimes infinite. So, rather than being aware of direct and clear facts, the reader is often conscious only of vague possibilities, poignant spaces and curious uncertainties. Muffled Ciphers does not attempt to illustrate or represent these features of Ballard’s work but rather to set up a kind of creative resonance that chimes with his dislocated sense of time and place and his extraordinary imagination.
Composers
Felix Carey
Iain Chambers
Philip Tagney
Robert WorbyPerformers
Iain Chambers – tapes, sine-wave oscillator, amplified objects
Philip Tagney – tapes, sine-wave oscillator, amplified objects
Robert Worby – tapes, radio, amplified objects. -
Peter Downsbrough
2011
OCCUPY
“My work enters in a dialogue with the space in which it is installed, with the architecture and with the persons that are passing, moving through the space, but it doesn’t look to exhibit the space.” – Peter Downsbrough
Peter Downsbrough’s OCCUPY (2011) offers a reflection on the importance of the position taken: that of sculpture within its context, that of the viewer vis-à-vis the work, and that of the artist within the world that surrounds. Within these complex structures, the position of each element plays a decisive role upon the whole – as also found within language or architecture. This work was originally heard along with Downbrough’s film OCCUPIED (2000).
Downsbrough’s works are often embodied in three-dimensional space, on a two-dimensional surface, or in the form of books, films and sound recordings. Relationships are drawn to architecture, linguistics and philosophy. Unbounded by their medium, site or the techniques used, his works often invite audiences to inhabit and appropriate them.
Piano, voice: Stephane Ginsburgh
Voice: Zula Ayriç
Recorded and mixed by Daniel Leon at Igloo Studio, Brussels, 11.2011Commissioned by Jeunesse et Arts Plastiques – Congrès for the exhibition Peter Downsbrough at the Bruxelles Congress railway station from 17.11.2011 – 25.01.2012
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Ezio Bosso
22.05.2020
Road Signs Variations
2017The internationally acclaimed Italian composer, conductor and pianist Ezio Bosso passed away at his home in Bologna on Friday 15th May 2020. He was 48 years old and had been suffering from a neurodegenerative disease since 2011, forcing him to give up playing the piano last year.
His last piano concert was held in La Morra, Piedmont, on 22nd September 2019 and celebrated his long-running friendship with artist David Tremlett as well as the 20th anniversary of the neighbouring Capella del Barolo painted by Sol LeWitt and Tremlett in 1999, as part of the project Keeping Time.
Tremlett writes for Bosso’s Guardian obituary: “Ezio was first an idealist and second a creator, for the majority of our friendship he had a constant battle with his health, but an optimism that pushed his disabilities under the table, always laughing, full of imagination, backed up by intellect and knowledge that left the listener spellbound. Ezio somehow knew something about everything and in his later days in a wheelchair would pirouette himself in the joy of having answered a question.”
Bosso’s 2017 album Road Signs Variations was conceived for a performance on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral as part of the City of London Festival in 2009, with choreography by Rafael Bonachela.
Road Signs Variations: Entrance, 05:09
Road Signs Variations: Help, The cathedral is the desert, 03:59
Road Signs Variations: One Way, 05:09
Road Signs Variations: Diversion, Street Kisses, 06:00
Road Signs Variations: Speed Limit, 04:33
Road Signs Variations: All Directions, 03:56
Road Signs Variations: Merge, One Harm hugs, 04:48
Road Signs Variations: Split, Postcards from Far Away, 08:54
Road Signs Variations: Cross, An Hallelujah, 06:06
Road Signs Variations: Stop, You Can’t Stop the resitance, 05:36
Road Signs Variations: Round About, Trees of life, 09:27
Road Signs Variations: Exit Run 44, 03:47
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David Tremlett
2020
When Lyrics Carry Weight
“There’s a lot that carries weight these days: money, fame, power, looks et al., but art perhaps carries the most, especially in its written form. For me, the lyric has always carried one of the most immediate impacts. Here is a selection of tracks brought together as a small homage to the late John Prine who died of COVID 19 in April 2020, and who’s lyrics had a special twist on the simple life, along with the other tracks that add a little more weight to the thought of the ordinary man.”
When Lyrics Carry Weight, 51:07
Tracklist:
1. Souvenirs – John Prine
2. We Must Have Been Out of Our Minds – John Prine & Melba Montgomery
3. Rag Bag – David Lindley
4. Paradise – John Prine
5. Bambo Siyaya (Chewa, Malawi) – Wilson Makawa
6. I Forgot to Remember to Forget – John Prine
7. The Very Thing That Makes You Rich (Makes Me Poor) – Ry Cooder
8. Ain’t Hurtin’ Nobody – John Prine
9. Linda Goes To Mars – John Prine
10. Wachona Thayelo (Chewa, Malawi) – Thayelo Kapiye Nyanja Trio
11. Tu Nja Tengene Elie – Mbongue Diboue et son ensemble
12. Suro Onipa – The K&S Band
13. Waltz of The Young Hearts (Seychelles) – Seychelles United Band
14. Dia Veloma I Said Omar – Marguerite and Razanatsoa
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Grace Weir
08.05.2020
If only something else had happened
Audio, cast fibreglass stone, headphones
2011In an audio work embedded in cast stone, the artist interviews Ruth Byrne, a Psychologist and Professor of Cognitive Science, about her theory of reasoning. Testing the hypothesis that imaginative thoughts are guided by the same principles that underlie rational thoughts, they discuss the idea of fault lines in reality, the aspects of reality that are more readily changed in imaginative thinking when we contemplate ‘if only something else had happened’. An explanation of these processes, Byrne argues, rests on the idea that imaginative thought and rational thought have much in common.
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The Donkey's Tail
I’m Your Flower
2016Formed in 2007 by artist John Nixon, The Donkey’s Tail is an experimental art-music ensemble featuring a diverse array of artists, musicians and amateur collaborators who perform Nixon’s unconventional musical compositions. The group has been prolific in the experimental music scene, releasing over a hundred recordings and playing regularly in Melbourne galleries and music venues. Known for their use of homemade instruments in unorthodox ways, The Donkey’s Tale’s recorded material traverses noise instrumentals to song written by Nixon in folk, spoken word and operatic idioms.
Not Yet a Russian Spring, 02:17
One Apple : Four Apples, 01:05
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David Cunningham
24.04.2020
22 November 2002
2002This is a recording of the first hour of David Cunningham’s performance for the opening of On Kawara’s 2002 exhibition Consciousness. Meditation. Watcher on the Hills. at the Ikon Gallery.
David Cunningham plays electric guitar through two long delay systems – each note is held in one of the delays and reappears throughout the evening on very long cycles. This process forces the performer to think of time as a chronological sequence rather than the rhythmic ordering of music.
A rehearsal for this performance is the default ‘on hold’ music on the Ikon Gallery switchboard and also on the Ikon online archive.
Thanks to Jonathan Watkins, On Kawara, Hiroko Kawara, Matthew Hogan and Ikon for making this happen.
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