SoundSeen:

SoundSeen:

Cage / Braxton / Marclay

FEBRUARY 6 – MARCH 26, 2017

HANES ART GALLERY

SoundSeen: Remix

Cage / Braxton / Marclay

MARCH 16 – MAY 28, 2017

SECCA (SOUTHEASTERN CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY ART)

SoundSeen + Remix is an exhibition in two sequential iterations. SoundSeen will open at the Hanes Gallery (February 6), followed by SoundSeen: Remix at SECCA (March 16), presenting different works by the same three artists; John Cage, Anthony Braxton, and Christian Marclay. Hanes Gallery will feature Marclay’s Taped Tapes, a group of drawings made with audio tape and not previously exhibited together, along with Wake Forest’s Memento (Hearing is Believing) and other “audio tape” works. SECCA will feature the many “scores” of Marclay’s Graffiti Composition, Shuffle, and To Be Continued. The extended duration of the exhibition will also allow several performances and events to take place during its course.
Visitors will have the opportunity to see both parts while they are on view simultaneously at Hanes Gallery and SECCA from March 16 through March 26.

SoundSeen: Cage / Braxton / Marclay takes as its starting point the “graphic score” – musical ideas presented less with standard musical notation than as images. The resulting works range from the geometric and diagrammatic to the gestural and the found. There is a rich recent tradition of the graphic score, but this exhibition will focus on three diverse artists, including one of the first to regularly use this approach; John Cage. As both a musician and visual artist, he created works where the score has the qualities of a drawing and his drawings & prints can be seen to have the qualities of music and sound. Wake Forest’s Louis Goldstein will perform “Solo for Piano” from Cage’s Concert for Piano and Orchestra in the Hanes Gallery on February 9th.

1994 MacArthur “genius” Fellow and 2014 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master Anthony Braxton has, from early in his performing life, created graphic scores as a way to visualize sound, space, performers’ positions, and time. These scores range from geometric to gestural graphic notations, but also include humorous drawings and collages. His music has evolved to encompass a full spectrum of scales, from solo and small groups to opera, and employs several different “systems” which joyfully erase the boundaries of genre and enthusiastically draw from many wells of music and “sound” traditions. On March 15, Braxton will give a gallery talk in the Hanes Gallery, and on March 16 Anthony Braxton and members of his Tri-Centric Foundation will perform at SECCA.

2011 Venice Biennale Gold Lion winner Christian Marclay is familiar to many from his 2010 work The Clock. Marclay was also one of initial “turntablists” in the late 1970s. His body of work is multifarious, ranging from sound to video, sculpture and two-dimensional work, but almost all of it is concerned with “seeing” sound and “hearing” images. Almost no culturally inflected “aural” material, from puzzle-cut records, to outrageously juxtaposed album covers, altered instruments or onomatopoeic comic book imagery, has escaped his interest. A performance of Christian Marclay’s new composition, To Be Continued, will take place at SECCA on April 12 by ensemBle baBel, preceded by a gallery talk presented by the artist.

Curation and Collaboration

Paul Bright, Hanes Art Gallery with Cora Fisher, SECCA, in collaboration with:

For John Cage: the John Cage Trust/Laura Kuhn; the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts-Music Division/Jonathan Hiam; Wake Forest University Department of Music/Louis Goldstein.

For Anthony Braxton: the Tri-Centric Foundation/Taylor Ho Bynum, Carl Testa, Kyoko Kitamura.

For Christian Marclay: the Paula Cooper Gallery/Anthony Allen; ensemBle baBel/Laurent Estoppey; University of North Carolina-Greensboro/Lawrence Jenkens; Weatherspoon Art Museum-University of North Carolina-Greensboro.

Support

With generous and invaluable support from:

For John Cage: Wake Forest University Department of Music.

For Anthony Braxton/Tri-Centric Foundation: Wake Forest University-IPLACe.

For Christian Marclay/ensemBle baBel: Pro Helvetia; Jane and Richard Levy; University of North Carolina-Greensboro; Wake Forest University Office of the Provost; IPLACe.