At the end of last week I found myself visiting 3 galleries in less than 24 hours. Each visit had a musical dimension:
The Horse Hospital. X-Ray Audio. I read about this in the Guardian in the morning and discovered that I was already too late to get tickets for the planned performance but I thought it would be worthwhile to drop by. When I got there they were setting up for the evening and trying out a couple of odd-looking discs – both from Ukraine. One was a 7” transparent red flexi with an illustration of a swan in a pond…the audio was a cheesy folk song…this one had to be taped onto the deck to stop it from slipping. The second was a postcard disc…it looked like it was of a painting of an old church in Kiev and the pirated audio was the Beach Boys ‘Good Vibrations’…
Here is a scan of the beer mat of one of the Soviet era records cut onto an x-ray plate:
www.x-rayaudio.squarespace.com
Drawing Room. Chromosome Damage Listening Session. This should have been really interesting. The artist of the current show, Daniel Guzmán, had selected a bunch of records that he listens to while he works in his studio in Mexico City to be played in the gallery. These were to be combined with some music from his own band, Pellejos. I liked the idea of listening to the music while looking at the drawings. For some reason only 3 people were present at the event and this took the edge off the whole thing. Still, I heard Jorge Reyes for the first time…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUfz1cXBMcg
White Cube, Bermondsey. David Toop at the Christain Marclay exhibition. The second gig in a series of performances in the gallery. This is a generous undertaking on both Marclay’s and the gallery’s part. Toop’s considered and exploratory sound making and his fragile delineation of a ‘stage’ drew the audience into an intense dialogue with the space and the music despite the austere surroundings of the White Cube white cube.
The audience
David Toop in performance.
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