Max Eastley, Takehisa Kosugi, Walter Marchetti, Resonance104.4fm
Raven Row, London
Through 17 July 2011
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| RAVEN ROW LONDON |
This exhibition brings together three pioneers of sound art, Max Eastley, Takehisa Kosugi and Walter Marchetti. Each artist has developed a distinct approach to the problem of representing immateriality, while sharing a lightness of touch, approaching sound with patience, restraint and fidelity. As well as presenting new and historic work, the exhibition comprise live performance, and a selection of material from the artists' substantial archives.
MAX EASTLEY (born 1944, UK) is an artist and musician whose sound sculptures play on a balance between the natural environment and human intervention. His musical collaborations include the 1975 album New And Rediscovered Musical Instruments with David Toop, produced by Brian Eno. His response to the interior of Raven Row is a meditation on the 18th century Picturesque, achieved with 21st century technology and a ‘Bergsonian’ approach to time.
TAKEHISA KOSUGI (born 1938, Japan) is a major figure in modernist sound art. In the early 1960s his event pieces were realised by Fluxus in Europe and the USA. Kosugi pioneered the development of Japanese experimental music with Group ONGAKU and the Taj Mahal Travellers. Since 1977 he has been a composer/performer at Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and became its Music Director in 1995. As well as archival material, Takehisa Kosugi will present a number of works including the sound installation Mano-Dharma, electronic, 1967/2011.
WALTER MARCHETTI (born 1931, Italy) was a founder member of ZAJ, a recalcitrant Mediterranean parallel to Fluxus, which in the 1960s produced action-music-performances, anarchic gags, and elegant assaults on the music establishment. Marchetti befriended John Cage in 1958, and went on to collaborate with him on a number of projects. His work has often focused on the grand piano – for more than 50 years he has been preparing them like a chef intent on marinating sound. Two of Walter Marchetti's pianos, alongside works from Emanuele Carcano's Collection, are exhibited.
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| WALTER MARCHETTI |
Walter Marchetti, Musica da camera n. 182
Milano, Pianofortissimo,
Fondazione Mudima, January 1990.
Photograph by Fabrizio Garghetti
Courtesy of Raven Row, London
Alongside these positions, RESONANCE104.4FM is installed at Raven Row for the duration of the exhibition, broadcasting, and hosting workshops and live events, as well as presenting an 'overhung' sound installation – the Resonance Open – with contributions solicited from local and international sound artists. Resonance104.4fm is the world’s first radio art station, established by London Musicians’ Collective, it started broadcasting on May 1st 2002. Its brief is to provide a radical alternative to the universal formulae of mainstream broadcasting.
The exhibition is curated by ED BAXTER, director of Resonance104.4fm.
RAVEN ROW, LONDON, UK
56 Artillery Lane
London E1 7LS
www.ravenrow.org
Resonance104.4fm website: www.resonancefm.com
