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The Exhibition Shows How Minimalism Sculpture, Paintingandinstallation, Through Over 150Artworks, Spanning 16 November 2018To 14April2019

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The Exhibition Shows How Minimalism Sculpture, Paintingandinstallation, Through Over 150Artworks, Spanning 16 November 2018To 14April2019 Minimalism: Space. Light. Object. Sound Room Reader Written by Wesley Goatley and Honor Harger Minimalism within music is based on Edited by Nina Ernst and Adrian George the idea that there is virtue in drawing Designed and printed by Black Mongrels back from musical opulence and excess Published by ArtScience Museum, Singapore 2018 @ArtScience Museum canons to reveal the essence of listening, ISBN 978-981-11-9458-0 of sound, and of the absence of sound. It is music made with limited or minimal musical materials suggesting that Published to accompany the exhibition: simplicity can be beautiful, and can reveal Minimalism: Space. Light. Object. its own unexpected complexity. Sometimes 16 November 2018 – 14 April 2019 austere and terse, at other times expansive Organised by National Gallery Singapore and ArtScience Museum and mind-altering, Minimalist music is characterised by steady pulses, gradual Curated by Eugene Tan, Russell Storer, Silke Schmickl and transformation, syncopated rhythmic loops, Goh Sze Ying from National Gallery Singapore, and gliding drones, and the repetition of musical Adrian George and Honor Harger from ArtScience Museum phrases. It traces its roots to the radical experiments of John Cage, who showed that even silence is part of music, as well as the SOUND ROOM deconstructed works of early modernist music, and Asian traditions such as Indian classical music and Balinese soundscapes. The Sound Room charts the course of the development of Minimalist music, from AN INTRODUCTION TO AN INTRODUCTION the avant-garde modernisers of early 20th century music, to Minimalist innovators such as Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass, who worked alongside their visual art counterparts in the ‘High Minimalist’ period of the 1960s and 1970s, to a new wave of Minimalism which emerged in the latter part of the century. It presents not only the canonical works of Minimalism, but also The Sound Room is a key part of the the emerging experimental practices that exhibition, Minimalism: Space. Light. Object., predated them, and those that show their South East Asia’s first major survey of legacy is not only living on, but is actively minimal art, held at ArtScience Museum evolving with a new generation of and National Gallery Singapore, from musical experimenters. 16 November 2018 to 14 April 2019. Through over 150 artworks, spanning As in visual art, Minimalism in music has sculpture, painting and installation, been profoundly influential. It was described the exhibition shows how Minimalism by music critic Kiran Sande as “the single became a radical turning point in the most important idea of the last century, history of 20th century art. the one that made possible virtually all that we now listen to and hold dear, from Whilst the galleries of ArtScience Museum punk and techno to ambient and grime”.1 and National Gallery Singapore emphasise The term describes not only a set of how visual artists sought to express the aesthetic practices, but also a conceptual profundity of simplicity, the Sound Room and often philosophical understanding reveals how Minimalism manifested within of the relationships between composer, music and sound art. It presents over 40 performer, listener, and sound. Many of the compositions of Minimalist music, a sonic written scores, performance instructions, artform that emerged alongside the visual or the geographical and political contexts art that came to define Minimalism in 1960s. of each work are sites where the ongoing development of Minimalist music can be seen, revealing deeper layers to the practice of this sonic art form. 1’Sande K (2010), “A Brief History of Minimalism”, FACT, 1 February 2010, viewed online 9 November 2018. 5 PROGRAMME ONE: The Sound Room begins with DURING TERRY RILEY programme one, During Minimalism, In C 1964 0:42:01 an aural exploration of the key tropes of Minimalist music in the 1960s, MINIMALISM including the extended cyclical drones LA MONTE YOUNG of La Monte Young and Tony Conrad, Minimalist music emerged in The Well-Tuned Piano 1964 0:59:18 and the repetitive pulsing rhythms parallel to the visual art that has of Steve Reich and Terry Riley. become associated with Minimalism TONY CONRAD Their work was made in reaction in New York in New York during the Four Violins 1964 0:32:30 to other music styles, such as the 1960s. If Donald Judd, Frank Stella Serialism of Pierre Boulez and and Robert Morris can be thought Karlheinz Stockhausen, which had of as the key proponents of ‘High PAULINE OLIVEROS made avant-garde music complex Minimalism’ in visual art, then their Bye Bye Butterfly 1965 0:08:09 and difficult to listen to. By contrast, The Sound Room also includes musical equivalents are Terry Riley, the Minimalists stripped music down composers who have often been Steve Reich, and La Monte Young. to its core essential elements, overlooked in traditional musical STEVE REICH focusing on its pure aural power, histories, including women such The first programme of the Sound Piano Phase 1967 0:20:37 rather than anything it might represent. as Èliane Radigue, Johanna Beyer, Room presents the work of a Daphne Oram, Else Marie Pade group of composers who helped Programme two, Before Minimalism, and Maryanne Amacher, who made define Minimalist music in the PHILIP GLASS investigates the genre’s precursors, pioneering and unique works which West. It also includes the work of Two Pages 1968 0:18:01 showing how paradigm-shifting early groundbreaking female composers amplified our understanding of Einstein On the Beach: 1976 0:03:52 works like Yves Klein’s Monotone who were overlooked for many years Minimalism, but went largely Knee Play 1 Symphony (1949) - an orchestral piece unappreciated during their own within the canon of Minimal music, incorporating a 22-minute silence - time. Acting as a counterpoint to the such as Maryanne Amacher, took the process of paring back to American composers of the High Èliane Radigue and Pauline JO KONDO an extreme, removing even the basic Minimalist period are musicians who Oliveros, and non-Western Sight Rhythmics 1975 0:13:10 requirement of music - sound itself. draw upon more diverse cultural innovators, including Jo Kondo The introduction of the idea that traditions, including Colin McPhee, and Hiroshi Yoshimura. silence could be a constituent of Jo Kondo, and Hiroshi Yoshimura. JOHN ADAMS musical composition was amongst In moving beyond its conventional Phrygian Gates 1977 0:29:39 many radical innovations made by definitions, we aim to present an the “ultra-modernist” composers expanded concept of Minimalist of first part of the 20th century, music across the three programmes, ARVO PÄRT who transformed the way that we to add new conceptual and poetic Spiegel im Spiegel 1978 0:09:24 listen, and inspired a new approach layers to the acoustic experience. to Minimalist music-making. Minimalism went further than being CHARLEMAGNE PALESTINE The Sound Room culminates in a musical movement. It shook the Excerpt from Evolution of 1978 0:06:43 programme three, After Minimalism, foundations of our understanding a Sonority in Strumming examining how a new generation of music, and redefined what sound and Arpeggio Style for of musicians, such as Ryoji Ikeda, art can be. The Sound Room offers Bosendorfer Piano Thomas Köner and alva noto have visitors a unique communal listening used technology to redefine environment; the opportunity to Minimalism for a digital age, sit in a calm space dedicated to a HIROSHI YOSHIMURA creating works of extreme sparsity contemplative sensory experience, Dream 1982 0:05:35 and hypnotic depth. and become immersed in a musical Dance PM 0:06:32 form that shapes perceptions of time and space. ÉLIANE RADIGUE As conductor, Charles Hazlewood Jetsun Mila, Pt. 1 1987 0:44:25 advises, “you have to drop your usual way of listening, lose your expectations and surrender to an eternal now.”2 MARYANNE AMACHER Chorale 1 1999 0:05:54 2Hazlewood C (2018), “Adventures in Motion and Pitches: How Minimalism Shook up Classical Music”, The Guardian, 2 March 2018, viewed online 9 November 2018. SOUND ROOM 6 7 In C Four Violins 1964 1964 American composer and performer Tony Conrad was an American Terry Riley is considered one of the musician, composer, and founders of the Minimalist music experimental filmmaker. Born in movement. Born in 1935, Riley studied 1940, Conrad initially pursued a music in California, alongside fellow career in mathematics and computer minimalist pioneer, La Monte Young. programming, before moving to After moving to New York, Riley began New York, to pursue avant-garde creating compositions that employed music. As a performer with the TERRY RILEY TERRY RILEY the structured interlocking, repetitive legendary ensemble, the Theatre of patterns which became his hallmark. Eternal Music, Conrad was at the TONY CONRAD TONY centre of the New York Minimalist Riley’s rhythmic Minimalism was highly music scene in the 1960s, which influenced by his long study with Indian he later described as, “something classical musician, Prandit Pran Nath, just beyond music, a violent feeling a master of the Kirana gharana The Well-Tuned Piano of soaring unstoppably, powered by Bye Bye Butterfly singing style. With many Western immense angular machinery.”3 1964-73-81 – Present 1967 musicians citing Riley as an influence, Pran Nath’s teaching has indirectly Conrad’s amplified violin introduced impacted the music of many other La Monte Young is an American the sustained drone into minimal Pauline Oliveros was an American performers, such as The Who, musician and artist often considered music. His cyclical, long-form musical theorist, composer, and Mike Oldfield, and many more. to be amongst the first Minimalist minimalist music, exemplified by author. Born in 1932, Oliveros composers. Born in 1935, Young works such as Four Violins (1964), has was not only a key figure in the One of the defining works of Minimalist became known for his important a trance-like effect on the listener, development of electronic music music, Riley’s masterpiece, In C, work in Minimalist drone music, as he draws upon the full range of as an artform, but in pushing the exhibits a tension in its playfulness.
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