David Tremlett’s initial invitation to Sol LeWitt to collaborate on the Cappella del Barolo, KEEPING TIME : with faxback additions by LeWitt (1999) Cappella del Barolo 1999–2019 KEEPING TIME an artwork for the restored chapel. It was through his invitation that Sol LeWitt and David Tremlett came to paint and pastel the chapel and start a new chapter in its history. In contrast with the earthy palette of the landscape, LeWitt painted the exterior of the chapel in bold colours using geometric and curvilinear forms. Exuberant and joyful, Tony Tremlett it is a beacon for the tens of thousands who seek it out each year. The doors of the chapel are always open, and once inside, the visitor finds an intimate and reflective space whose colours echo those of the land. Its inlaid stone floor, stained glass windows, and pastel walls and ceilings were assembled by Tremlett. The chapel is unique in LeWitt’s oeuvre as his only wall drawing to cover an entire & Guy Robertson building. For Tremlett it is significant as his most public-facing work in a country where We begin with a chapel. It is found in a grid he has exhibited widely and is well-loved. of vineyards, stitched to the rolling hills of the Langhe in Piedmont, Northern Italy. Keeping Time celebrates the unique story of Although it looks baroque, the Cappella the Cappella del Barolo twenty years after it del Barolo was built in the early part of the was created. The idea of the chapel as a place twentieth century. It was never consecrated, intended for gatherings, hosting music and and farmhands used it as a shelter from prayer, led us to consider LeWitt and Tremlett’s the elements. We can imagine that folk music appreciation of music and its relationship and cattle bells would have met the ears to their practices. The compilation of tracks of passersby more often than evensong. Over on the first vinyl looks at their work in the course of the century the countryside terms of musicality and, delving into their depopulated and the chapel was left to own extensive music collections, finds ruin until it was restored in 1999 by Bruno affinities with the work of their friends and Ceretto, a farmer and winemaker who had contemporaries. The second vinyl provides acquired the vineyards amongst which the a point of access to LeWitt and Tremlett chapel stood. Wishing to celebrate the land for a younger generation of artists whilst on which his business was dependent, whilst providing a platform for their work. A offering it something new and culturally number of these artists participated in a meaningful, Ceretto decided to commission related residency programme, the Mahler & LeWitt Studios in Spoleto; a town in field, or your hill, or your landscape is your for both to make a statement of their own.’ he spent time as composer-in-residence in Umbria where LeWitt lived throughout the studio’. His work presented sound as a serial, LeWitt was friends with Steve Reich and 2016, into dialogue with the chapel. 1980s, Tremlett visited, and both made work sculptural intervention by mapping it onto Philip Glass and supported them before Appropriate Energy (2019) by Keef Winter at the invitation of their Italian gallerist the geography of the national landscape. they came to recognition by purchasing their redeploys some of Tremlett’s loop-tapes, Marilena Bonomo. LeWitt’s studio and His slideshow No Title (1982) uses over hand-written scores. One such acquisition manipulating them to find a twenty- the stone sculptor Anna Mahler’s, as well as thirty backing tracks and shows the breadth by LeWitt allowed Reich to afford the drums first-century rhythm. By way of Tremlett, the Bonomo’s Eremo and Torre, are today of his musical influences: jazz, lullaby, for Drumming (1970-71). LeWitt and Glass LeWitt and Laurie Anderson, Adam used by a growing community of artists, country, blues, a cappella folk, rock, and worked together on Dance (1979), with Gibbons’s conceptual piece Intro O (2019) composers, choreographers and writers for percussive African songs like Chemirocha III Lucinda Childs. Both Reich and Glass appear examines the nature of the loop and poses research and residencies. Some of the artists (1954) by Chemutoi Ketienya with Kipsigis on our first record, and the affinities between questions about the communicative capacity we have chosen to work with on this project girls, which we have chosen for the vinyl. their work — in regard to repetition and of art and language. From his Harlem have responded directly to the chapel or Music and its patterns are always close to variation within a self-imposed system — home in New York, Jason Moran imagines the musical context of LeWitt and Tremlett. Tremlett’s work, expressed as perpetual and that of LeWitt and Tremlett are evident. a conversation with the landscape of Others more broadly relate through their feedback between the poetic potentiality of La Langhe by sipping wine made from its exploratory combinations of visual art and landscape and the structure of architecture. With the chapel in mind, several tracks grapes (If The Land Could Tell, 2019). architecture with music and performance. express the intrinsic and dynamic relationship LeWitt described listening to music as that exists between sound and architecture. Moran’s track sketches out a terrain for In the 1970s, Tremlett made a number experiencing ‘form in time’. Like Tremlett, Cage du Grand Escalier (1993) by Gavin music which is inherently transgressive: of sound works. His friend Gavin Bryars he played music in his studio as he worked. Bryars explores the acoustics of the vast by its nature, sound will not be constrained introduced him to loop-tape recording in He copied his vinyl collection to cassette so spiral staircase in the Château d’Oiron in by borders, it is dynamic, relational and 1970 and he would later collaborate with the he wouldn’t have to flip records with grubby France: For the recording, he placed his social. Following this train of thought, New Zealander Tim Bowman to form some hands. His extensive collection of cassettes, musicians at intervals along the staircase Hiba Ismail’s tracks SUNKAB and of his loops into an album entitled Hands predominately classical, fills an entire room from top to bottom. We felt that the materials examine the acoustics and architectonics up — Too Bad (2002). Both composers feature in his Connecticut home and is methodically Caroline Shaw references in Limestone of public space in Sudan. She finds a kind on the record. Tremlett listened to music catalogued in a hand-written logbook. & Felt (2012) neatly reflect the surfaces of of sonic resistance in the cohesive, rhythmic avidly and a number of his pastel works, such He was vocal about the influence of music on the Cappella del Barolo: whilst LeWitt’s sounds made by street protesters and the as Drawings and Other Rubbish (1970) and his serial art and he listened attentively to variations of hard-edged, bold colours contrast more domestic sound of a pestle and mortar Music to My (1978), reference specific songs different recordings of the same composition; with the landscape and proudly announce grinding coffee beans. Similarly, Lydia or auditory themes. In some early text-based his logbook has sixteen pages devoted the chapel as an architectural surface, Ourahmane’s Akfadou (2019) compiles audio pieces he worked directly onto manuscript to Bach. In reference to one of his earliest Tremlett’s interior is of a softer nature. In jottings from her daily life which pose paper. The Spring Recordings (1972) document wall drawings, Wall Drawing #26 (1969), places, the pastel work brings the landscape questions about our sense of belonging in a his travels through all eighty-one counties a version of which we are installing for the inside, dissolving the architecture. global geography marked by the restriction of England, Scotland and Wales. In each Keeping Time exhibition, LeWitt, describing of movement. Babatunde Doherty’s he made a recording lasting approximately the relationship between his instructions All remaining tracks were specially Itinerant’s Creed (2019) reworks loop-tapes fifteen minutes. With the exception of and the drafters who execute them, said commissioned for Keeping Time. James Cave’s by Tremlett whilst imagining the trials of Greater London, each recording was made in with characteristic generosity, ‘I think of The Point on the Arch Mid-Way Between a displaced maritime wayfarer. quiet rural locations and consists of whatever it more like a composer who writes notes, the Two Walls (2019) continues on the could be heard at that time (principally and then a pianist plays the notes, but within architectural theme and brings the Torre From its indeterminate beginnings, the wind and bird song). Tremlett said that ‘your that kind of situation, there’s ample room Bonomo and its artworks in Spoleto, where Cappella del Barolo found a new lease of life as a site specific artwork: today its walls Roberta Ceretto to the area. From the very beginning it welcome all creeds and colours, reflecting the captivated everyone in the district and became joie de vivre of a group of holidaymakers as one of the most visited places around Alba. readily as the reflective mood of a solitary It is a true icon that is loved and preserved by pilgrim. It is a generative place. In compiling everyone — as a private space to contemplate, these records, we sought to follow the as an object to be proud of, and as a secret example of Bruno Ceretto’s open-minded for the many visitors in the Langhe area to invitation to LeWitt and Tremlett in 1999.