ART IN SOUND

More than a hundred years ago, pioneers from various directions set out on expeditions into the hitherto unexplored realms of sonic phenomena and processes, previously the exclusive domaine of musicians. Driving force was the visual artists, but also visionary poets and musicians, even architects and engineers. Leaving all corsets of rules behind, everything in this context was worth exploring: all possible notations (even directly on a record or ephemeral traces in sand), all types of making sound (even by machines or dogs), all forms of staging (even in a desert or completely drunk), and of course all acoustic effects (even silence or ear-splitting crashes). It was a liberation of sounds and a liberation of thinking. A reality broke through, pulsating with life, which enlarged and simultaneously shattered the well-defined harmony of allegedly superior forms and styles of the established Western music system which had lost contact with the modern world.

Disonata spans the period fromthe late 19th century with the first silent pieces and the transformations by the Futurists and Dada in the light of the technological and ideological revolutions until the we-are-doing-it-our-way attitudes of the punk and post-punk scenes in the 1980s. Between these two poles unfold a wide range of very diverse projects. They include the Philips Pavilion from 1958 with its spatial multimedia spectacle as well as a multitude of sound projects with explicit or loose links to groups and movements such as Lettrism, sound and visual poetry, Art Brut, CoBrA, kinetic art, New Realism, Fluxus, Zaj, Conceptual Art, and Pop Art. Their approaches range from corporal noises to electronic synthetizations, from optophonic poetry to technical inventions, from pure ideas to multimedia events, from intimate encounters to spatial multimedia compositions. A chronological approach lives up to the polyphonic riches of the unique sound projects which transcend pre-formulated definitions, themes or narratives. Main- and subsidiary paths within the general timeline reveal relations and overlaps, but also discontinuities. Within resonate the individual nuances of the sounds which are of an essentially unclassifiable nature. In this sense, the exhibition can be understood as a veritable disonata: a composition which reflects, extends and surpasses canonical forms of art in sound. It sets the sounds free to resonate in full variety between us and the space. Receiving them with open ears and eyes, we will realize that we perceive and interpret our world to a very large extent acoustically, probably even more than visually.

Artists: Alphonse Allais, Erik Satie, Erwin Schulhoff, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Francesco Balilla Pratella, Luigi Russolo, Dziga Vertov, Hugo Ball, Raoul Hausmann, Marcel Duchamp, Kurt Schwitters, Man Ray, Alexander Calder, Pierre Schaeffer, Edgard Varèse, Le Corbusier, Iannis Xenakis, Isodore Isou, Maurice Lemaître, Jean Dubuffet, Asger Jorn, Karel Appel, Pol Bury, Brion Gysin, François Dufrêne, Henri Chopin, Ilse Garnier, Françoise Janicot, Bernard Heidsieck, Mimmo Rotella, Katalin Ladik, Guy Schraenen, François and Bernard Baschet, Yves Tinguely, George Brecht, Dick Higgins, Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, Mieko Shiomi, Joe Jones, Robert Filliou, La Monte Young, George Maciunas, Tadeuz Kantor, Walter Marchetti, Juan Hidalgo, José Luis Castillejo, Esther Ferrer, Dieter Roth, Joseph Beuys, Vladan Radovanović, Józef Robakowski, Chris Burden, Robert Morris, Ulises Carrión, Hanne Darboven, Andy Warhol, Dan Graham, Mike Kelley, Raymond Pettibon and more.

This fictional round table conversation with members of "Selten Gehörte Musik" is based on the amazing oral history project "Selten gehörte Gespräche" (rarely heard conversations) with Hansjörg Mayer, Oswald Wiener, Christian Ludwig Attersee, Dominik Steiger, Arnulf Rainer, Günter Brus, Hermann Nitsch, Björn Roth and Gerhard Rühm. The artists speak about Dieter Roth and Selten gehörte Musik, but also about their personal relationship to music, their own work and the art scenes. The "Selten gehörte Gespräche" are offered in two versions:

> RECORDED INTERVIEWS by Matthias Haldemann, Michel Roth and Flurina and Gianni Paravicini: online here: Selten gehörte Gespräche

> TRANSCRIBED INTERVIEWS (En/Ger) including keywording, timecodes and essays by Flurina Paravicini and Michel Roth: Edizioni Periferia et al.: Selten gehörte Gespräche, Luzern 2014

The exhibition brings together hundreds of vinyl records, covers, objects and graphic works, created by visual artists as well as by poets and some musicians. The works belong to the internationally most important and most comprehensive collection on Sound Art, the Sound Collection Guy Schraenen, which is part of his Archive for Small Press & Communication, now held by the Centre for Artists’ Publications at the Museum Weserburg Bremen, Germany. The show is divided into various sections that range from the avant-garde movements of the beginning of the 20th century such as Dadaism and Futurism, to sound experiments after 1945 by the Lettrists, Sound Poets, Beat Generation, Fluxus, Zaj, Conceptual Art. Presented are also groups of records by artists such as Jean Dubuffet, Dieter Roth, Joseph Beuys, John Giorno, William Burroughs, Roman Opalka, Hermann Nitsch, Hanne Darboven, Allen Ginsberg, Laurie Anderson, as well as singular works by Yves Klein, Tom Wesselmann or Karel Appel. The relationship between visual arts and rock and pop music is highlighted with the records of the Rolling Stones, Velvet Underground or the Beatles, but also more recent groups such as Kraftwerk, Black Flag or Sonic Youth; artists such as Andy Warhol, Robert Franck, Peter Blake or Raymond Pettibon have transformed them into icons.

A listening table, specially designed for this exhibition, allows visitors to access sound samples by almost all works of the collection.

Furthermore is presented a selection of music clips by artists. Chosen are works by visual artists who have found a freedom of creation in this short format which allows them to mix provocations, humour or diversions while echoing our time.

In a specially arranged movie space, the public can also watch the documentary Vinylmania which leads through the fascinating facets of the vinyl record. Enthusiastic collectors, DJs, musicians and artists all over the world can be met. Guy Schraenen speaks about his passion for records and covers by artists.

Curators: Sylvie Zavatta (for the part "Clips by Artists"); Maike Aden (for the part "Sound Collection Guy Schraenen").

Link to the collection:
Sound Collection Guy Schraenen including artist biographies, a glossary and hundreds of sound samples

The comprehensive exhibition Vinyl. Records and Covers by Artists is based on an emblematic graphic and sound medium, the vinyl record. The 31,5 x 31,5 format of the cover attracts artists to use it as a medium of expression. Among them are not only the collector's trophies by the Beatles, Black Flag, Talking Heads, Rolling Stones, The Who, Sonic Youth, Bobby O, Diana Ross or Patty Smith records designed by Roy Adzak, Peter Blake, Richard Hamilton, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Mapplethorpe, Raymond Pettibon or Andy Wahrhol. Also artists such as John Baldessari, Joseph Beuys, Günter Brus, Jean Dubuffet, Richard Hamilton, Keiith Haring, Yves Klein, Fernand Léger, Roy Lichtenstein, Joan Miró, Raymond Pettibon, Dieter Roth, Andy Warhol and Tom Wesselman, among many others, transformed albums into impressive works of art. Many of these artists' covers protect records inside with exciting sound experiments. The earliest of those can be found within the avant-garde movements such as Dada and the Futurists who turned to sound as a medium and a material for expression. But it was not until the sixties that there was a proliferation and diversification of collaborations between musicians and visual artists. Likewise, experiences that formed part of movements as CoBRA, Art brut, Cinetic art, New realism, Fluxus, Pop art and Conceptual art are direct precursors of recent sound experiments.

The exhibition brings together over 800 vinyl records from the collection of Guy Schraenen, the curator of the project. The visitors can experience both the covers and the sounds by artists. They also can consult an ample collection of additional materials such as tapes, publications and documents. Moreover, a listening station invites to explore a selection of over a thousand sound pieces by visual artists.

On occasion of the exhibition, a comprehensive catalogue will be published.

The show will be travel from Bremen to, among others, Barcelona, Porto, Paris, and Moscow.

An extensive programme of activities represents the accompagnying Sound Art Project. It consists of a variety of events with regard to the cross-border activities in the area of art and music, but also poetry and film. It includes:

• A series of sound art concerts of artists including, among others, Dmitri Prigov, Sven-Ake Johansson, Sten Hansen, Carsten Nicolai etc.
• An international conference: "Sound Art Between Avant-garde and Pop Culture" (30 Sept.–2 Oct. 2005)
• A Sound Art Cinema Week (2–6 Nov. 2005)
• An international Sound art fair with publishers and antiquarians, specialised in Sound art (30 Sept.–2 Oct. 2005)