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. discover. Woven through the work of those two artists and their contemporaries, a group of younger I have always thought that something artists has been offered a space (minutes on magical surrounds the chapel; for instance the vinyl) and a context (the chapel) with the way we met David Tremlett and how he which to work. Their free responses give form involved Sol LeWitt, and the decisions they to a compilation full of new dialogues which made together on how to cooperate on such a create unexpected links across disciplines, simple little building in a seemingly unknown generations and geographies. Buon ascolta. place, surrounded by nothing but nature and vineyards. We, as wine producers, are very different to the great museums that the two artists were so used to dealing with. Few of us could have imagined how a little We paid them in wine — one bottle of wine chapel in the heart of the vineyards of for each week of the year. Barolo would change our lives and the local approach to the area. I remember clearly the moment Sol and David got together in front of the abandoned It was a lucky meeting, first with David building for the first time. It was a cold Tremlett and later with Sol LeWitt. A friend and grey day in fall, but they could already had asked us to sponsor an exhibition in the envision the colours they wanted to use on castle of Barolo where David had been invited the chapel. When I first saw the completed to realise a series of wall drawings. At that chapel in September 1999, it was like love time, in 1996, the connection between art and at first sight. A rainbow of colour on the wine was not as common as it has become hills of Barolo. It was something extremely now, but we were inspired by this interesting modern in a land where traditions are rooted proposal and agreed to help. I would say this as deeply as the grape vines. was the beginning of our friendship. David did more than just introduce us to his work; To us it is important that the chapel is shared he also opened our eyes to a great passion for with its visitors, such as the pilgrims who art which we have developed over the past walk the two kilometres that separate it twenty years parallel to our wine production. from La Morra. We as a family come from The Cappella del Barolo was a special gift this land and our occupation is linked to it. We have a debt of gratitude with the rich REFLECTIONS Marilena Bonomo, Alfonso Artiaco). and generous hills that surround us, and we He and I exchanged work on paper regularly strongly believe that beauty creates more and often wrote postcards as a means of beauty: it opens minds and hearts. On the communication, which many artists did twentieth anniversary of this little chapel, at that time (I still try to). Faxes became more we are proud that its story will continue. common in the 80s and 90s but sadly many have faded. Laure and I stayed in Connecticut with Carol and Sol and occasionally used their flat in New York: generosity was Sol’s David Tremlett great attribute. One common interest we had was to listen to music whilst working. This music was all on cassette and the consequence was many stacks of tapes. Our tastes, I think, were different, mine being blues, world music, quite a lot of country music and rock and roll, with classical music for the quieter times. Sol never showed me his collection in detail, but I remember seeing it at a distance and it was vast! Music was always in the The thought of working in the land of truffles background for me. and Barolo wine had never occurred to me when I first landed in Italy in 1975. That was The Loop Tape Recordings from 1970 were my first exhibition with Marilena Bonomo made in the days when I had a studio in in Bari, a very different part of the country Camberwell, London. Gavin Bryars, whom compared to Piedmont. In 1989, Bruno Ceretto I met at Leicester Polytechnic in 1970, showed me what was just a shell of a building showed me the way to make and use looped with a tractor parked inside. This eventually tape and with a musical interest in the likes became the Cappella del Barolo. Transformed of Steve Reich, La Monte Young, Terry from a dusty brick shed back to its original Riley and Philip Glass, I started to make use (a chapel), with the primary colours of sound loops, which were always considered Sol LeWitt on its exterior and my pastel colours within a sculptural framework. The No inside. The project took a few months, was Title soundtrack really reflects the scope full of humour and good spirits, thanks to of my musical taste, from world music to Ferruccio Dotta and Peter Smith my assistants classical. No Title was a slide lecture I made and Anthony Sansotta on Sol’s behalf. between 1982 and 1990. The slides were of work, travel, exhibitions, postcards and other Sol and I had known each other since the paraphernalia accompanied by the music, early 1970s through group exhibitions and thus I never spoke about the work during galleries where we worked (Konrad Fischer, the lecture, just let the music do it. KEEPING TIME :

Gavin Bryars James Cave Babatunde Doherty (Baba Ali) Adam Gibbons Philip Glass Hiba Ismail Chemutoi Ketienya with Kipsigis girls Sol LeWitt Jason Moran Lydia Ourahmane Steve Reich Caroline Shaw Three older female singers David Tremlett & Tim Bowman Keef Winter Gavin Bryars Cage du Grand Escalier comes from Gavin Bryars’s 1993 album A Listening Room (Chambre d’écoute). The album was recorded in the Château d’Oiron in France, when construction work was almost completed in converting it into a museum of modern art which was to later house Wall Drawing #752 by Sol LeWitt. Some of the material was sketched out by Bryars, but almost all Cage du Grand Escalier, 1993 of the music was improvised, as it were in the ‘Bryars style’, as duos between clarinet/ bass clarinet and double bass (the latter played by the composer himself). The music was recorded in many different rooms in the Château, taking advantage of and using the unique acoustics of these spaces, and then later played as an installation in the ‘chambre d’écoute’ (originally one of the large 8’03” ground floor kitchens), thereby giving an acoustic map of the building. Cage du Grand Escalier took place and was recorded in the great staircase of the Château. It has an acoustic space that passes up the full height of the building. Musicians were located at Sextet different levels on the staircase and recorded Musicians from Gavin Bryars Ensemble from a point halfway up. Bass Clarinet: Roger Heaton Tenor Horn: Dave Smith Gavin Bryars and David Tremlett first Double Bass: Gavin Bryars met each other at Leicester Polytechnic in the UK in 1970. It was at that time that Musicians from Oiron Bryars introduced Tremlett to reel-to-reel Clarinet: Albert Chansault tape machines. Inspired by the work of Baritone: Joël Becot Philip Glass, Steve Reich, La Monte Young Bass: Michel Morin and other contemporaries, soon afterwards Tremlett made reel-to-reel tapes a new Sound Design: Chris Ekers medium. He used them in a number of works Sound Engineers: Chris Ekers including The Spring Recordings (1972). and Bob Burnell Post-Production: Dave Hunt Studio, London James Cave ‘Much of my recent work has addressed the them. I was also struck by the way in which the countertenor voice are also suggestive of relationship between landscapes and their one of LeWitt’s texts from the Torre — The the relationship between the two buildings inhabitants, from the climate-affected ecology Point on the Arch Mid-Way Between the Two and their surrounding landscapes. of Iceland (in Latrabjarg, 2014), the war- Walls — could apply to both buildings, the ravaged landscape of Iraq (my opera Returns, intimacy of the Torre’s inner spaces reflected I was fortunate to work with two regular 2015–18), or the area affected by the 2016 in the way in which the Cappella’s arches colleagues: I have worked with Morgan The Point on the Arch Mid-Way Between central Italian earthquake. The earthquake invite the viewer into a contemplative space. Goff for many years as part of the Gavin was the subject of a recent collaborative Bryars Ensemble. He is a violist of singular work, Eonsounds: Fiamignano Gorge (2017), My piece, like the works of LeWitt and expressiveness: his nuanced playing is composed with electronica artist Ben Tremlett, explores the idea of variation within perfectly suited to the evocation of the Eyes. The work drew on my own personal a framework of apparent repetition and subtle variations of Tremlett and LeWitt’s experience of the event, which took place continuity of line. I make almost continuous art. I have collaborated with Ben Eyes the Two Walls, 2019 whilst I was a resident at the Mahler & use of tremolo (fast repeated notes) and trill (electronics/production) on a number of LeWitt Studios, Spoleto, and wove melodic effects, which the violist plays with minute, projects including Eonsounds: Fiamignano fragments derived from geological field data almost imperceptible variation in speed Gorge. In this instance, his studio expertise specific to the area into its sound-tapestry. and tone quality. The solo viola represents a was invaluable in bringing to life a solitary figure, regarding a landscape that is large-scale musical landscape.’ subtly varied beneath its apparent continuity. 5’57” The Point On The Arch Mid-Way Between The Two Walls considers the relationship The brief echoings of the viola’s melody by between buildings and the landscapes that they occupy. It draws its inspiration from the Cappella del Barolo in La Morra — and the Torre Bonomo in Spoleto, which contains wall drawings by LeWitt and where Tremlett was once a resident. I was struck by the ways in which Tremlett and LeWitt’s artistic interventions into these buildings resonate with their respective landscapes in different ways. LeWitt’s bright geometric forms boldly announce themselves on the exterior, whilst the fluid forms used by Tremlett on the James Cave is a composer and singer based in York, UK. In 2015 he was composer-in-residence interior ally themselves with the contours, at the Banff Centre, Canada. In 2016, he was the first composer-in-residence at the Mahler & colours and materials of the surrounding LeWitt Studios, Spoleto. He sings in the York Minster Choir and Il Cor Tristo, and has toured countryside. Ireland, France and the Netherlands with the Gavin Bryars Ensemble. He has performed live on BBC Radio 3 and NPO Radio 4 (Netherlands). Cave has received the Terry Holmes Award, and The interior of the Torre, in contrast, is Sir Jack Lyons Celebration Award for composition; he won ‘Best Use of Sound’ at ICAD 2017 at Viola: Morgan Goff decorated in an intimate style, with expansive Penn State University. His work has been performed in the UK, Canada, the United States, Italy Countertenor/Double Bass: James Cave webs of monochrome pencil tracings and a and Norway. He is an Artistic Associate of the South Asian arts organisation Manasamitra, and Electronics/Production: Ben Eyes series of texts forming a commentary upon holds a PhD in Composition from the University of York. Babatunde Doherty (Baba Ali) Babatunde Doherty’s Itinerant’s Creed is Adam Gibbons O Superman, O judge, O mom and dad a response to a recording of a tap dancer named Karen Barnard. The recording of In Anderson’s song, the capital O is invoked, Barnard was made by David Tremlett calling on authorities of guidance, protection, and is one of forty-four loop tapes he made or punishment. Though the message between 1969 and 71. Doherty applied is dispatched, it isn’t answered directly. time and pitch-shifting effects to the sample The answering machine takes the call: to create visceral sounds which resemble murky, oceanic rhythms. Acoustic guitar Hi, I’m not home right now. But if you want to Itinerant’s Creed, 2019 Intro O, 2019 and lyrics were also added. leave a message, just start talking at the sound of the tone. Doherty has made a series of works about migration, drawing on his experiences as In the course of the recording, Anderson’s a child of Nigerian immigrant parents and voice changes as it is fed into the Vocoder. encountering immigrant communities in It splits into polyphonic octaves, becomes his native USA and later whilst resident in multiple and splintered, simultaneously the UK. Itinerant’s Creed adds to this deeper and higher, a shift in the register body of work: maritime terminology and of gender and a departure from the specific 4’58” aquatic motifs illuminate fragmentary 0’49’’ nature of one individual, human voice, narratives about communities and cultures becoming inhuman, superhuman, daunting, affected by trans-global movement. omnipotent:

‘There are around six or seven ways to alter Hello? Is anybody home? the playback of a vinyl record using only a Well, you don’t know me, but I know you. record player. You can play a record at 33 And I’ve got a message to give to you. rpm or at 45 rpm. You can start and you can stop the record suddenly with the start/stop There is no message without a recipient. button. You can stop the record incrementally A message is not a message without an by switching the record player off using the address. The message addresses us, it reaches power button. You can alter the pitch up and us because it knows where to find us. That you can alter the pitch down. discovery may be one of care, or it may place us under fire. At the start of a record such as O Superman Babatunde Doherty (b. 1989, USA) is a Nigerian-American multi-disciplinary artist based (For Massenet) (1981) by Sol LeWitt’s close Language, fed through the Vocoder, between London and New York. Doherty works in sound, painting and performance and friend Laurie Anderson, there is a period of the harmonizer, transatlantic phone lines, is interested in the notion of hybridity and its relevance to diasporic and transnational identity. about five or six seconds before the song begins or answering machines, is no longer a Since 2017, Babatunde has been releasing music under the alias ‘Baba Ali’. The music fuses to play. This is a recording of those seconds. fundamentally human faculty. It is a kind elements of funk, blues, and post-punk, with lyrics that drift between social commentary and The record was played at 33 rpm instead of of utopian, transgressive parasite to its the surreal. 45 rpm, and the recording has been looped. acoustic medium. The authority of the voice can be made to travel, from vocal cords Philip Glass augment the ensemble to bring in three more to sonar signals to encrypted messages lines, for a total of twelve. I played it for to algorithms to networks to bots to echo a friend of mine and, when it was through, chambers. It can be alienated from its body, she said, “That’s very beautiful; what liberated, it can appear in drag, it can are the other eleven parts going to be like?” come back to haunt you. And I thought that was an interesting misunderstanding and decided to take it as None of this is audible in the forty-nine a challenge and go ahead and compose seconds of the recording. The track ends eleven more parts.’ where the song begins — just before a Part I, Music in Twelve Parts, 1971–1974 single syllable is looped rhythmically on a By the time of Music in Twelve Parts, the Glass harmonizer, the beginnings of a word, an Ensemble had solidified into an aggregate exhalation at the threshold of language, of two electronic keyboards (Farfisa organs repeated as one would when offering in the early years), wind instruments and soundings to a child. voice, amplified and fed through a mixer by Kurt Munkacsi, who was considered in every ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha way a full member of the group. When Music in Twelve Parts was completed, the lineup The origins of this recording are vocal 16’06” was Glass and Michael Riesman on keyboards; warm ups, in mind of the voices that Richard Landry, Jon Gibson and Richard have, metaphorically, left messages on Peck playing winds; soprano Joan LaBarbara the answering machine, in mind of mum, Music in Twelve Parts, written by Philip Glass and Munkacsi at the mixing desk. and dad, and son, and daughter, and between 1971 and 1974, is a compendium kindred spirits, and strange relationships, of techniques of repetition the composer had There are many beauties in the score but and absent and present.’ been developing since the mid-1960s. ‘I had Part I — the original Music in Twelve a specific didactic purpose in mind when I set Parts, from which the other eleven sprung — to work on Twelve Parts’, Glass said in 1990. remains some of the most soulful music Adam Gibbons and Eva Wilson ‘I wanted to crystallise in one piece all the Glass ever wrote. And yet it is also one of his ideas of rhythmic structure that I had been most determinedly reductive compositions: working on since 1965.’ at any place in the music, reading vertically in the score, one will find both a C sharp and Glass wrote Part I in early 1971. ‘The first an F sharp being played somewhere in the movement was originally intended to stand instrumentation. Through skillful contrapuntal on its own and the “Twelve Parts” in the weaving, Glass creates, paradoxically, Adam Gibbons is an artist, writer and lecturer based in London. His practice often manifests title referred to twelve lines of counterpoint in a drone that is not a drone — an active, as more or less tactful impingements on the work of other artists or their exhibitionary the score,’ he explained in 1993. ‘I called abundant, richly fertile stasis. surroundings. Gibbons is co-commissioning editor, with Eva Wilson, of the publication “ ”, it Music in Twelve Parts because the keyboards an ongoing series of books about art, publishing and dissemination. He is a founding member played six lines, there were three wind players of the artist group Am Nuden Da, who have been exhibiting internationally since 2008. involved, and I had originally planned to Hiba Ismail art, / Invisible-Ness, it was called”, but it Chemutoi Ketienya with Kipsigis girls a musician Tremlett listened to regularly). never fooled anyone.1 I remain an observer. Some time between 1927 and 1950, a small Halima starts to grind the coffee. It is damp quantity of records consisting of songs sung and the beans take a little longer than by Rodgers was transported to East Africa. SUNKAB , 2019 usual to fragment. A track. Suddenly, the Locals played them on portable turntables sound asserts an agency of its own. I stop left behind by Christian missionaries. this thought in its tracks. Tracking. More Rodgers’s ‘blue yodels’, in which his voice furnishings. Leave it alone. It remains rises and falls rapidly, were hugely popular. somewhere between artefact, relic, and event. 0’45” An anonymous material, keeping time.’ Chemirocha III, 1950 David Tremlett, who has travelled and worked in Kenya extensively, used Chemirocha III “Don’t you want cardamom? as one of over thirty backing tracks for No we don’t his 1982 slideshow No Title, which consisted , 2019 Nice, I poured it in of 162 slides on two carousels. Using I won’t pour it out for you yet photographs and postcards, which read Best we put some cinnamon in as generative notes and sketches, No Title I put the cinnamon in too documented Tremlett’s travels as well No no no no no no no as his artworks, which at the time were 2’16” No no he’s lying 1’29” often ephemeral interventions. Ry Cooder, Nice, I poured it in Little Willie Littlefield, The Tallis Scholars, Best we put some cinnamon in Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs, Jimmy ‘One day in February and everything is I put the cinnamon in too” Chemirocha III is a song about a creature Rodgers, amongst others, were also included at a standstill. Today is the high school called Chemirocha, a mystical half-man, on the soundtrack. Tremlett would play graduation of Halima’s youngest but it has — Anonymous, Port Sudan, February 2019 half-beast figure. The singers are from a the slideshow and accompanying soundtrack been called off. The city is on strike along rural Kenyan tribe called Kipsigis who adore when asked to lecture on his work. with the workers at the main gateway that Hiba Ismail (b. 1992), draws on the vernacular the creature for his maniac chanting and feeds the country’s imports and exports. and addresses the ways in which events dancing. The girls are assisted by a lone The entry point for eighty-five percent are mapped on architecture and material kibugandet, a four-stringed lyre, played by of all imported goods. A contract has been culture. Her interests lie in unearthing the Ketienya, and they sing in Kipsigis, the signed to sell the rights to the South Port external influences acted upon localities Nilo-Saharan language native to the region. Container Terminal to a Philippine port through sound, often recording various One female voice sings the melody on her operator under a twenty-year concession. soundscapes in Sudan, from the grinding of own, while at least one other woman provides coffee beans with a pestle and mortar to the backing vocals. Every so often, for a note We sit down and conversation is already rhythms found amongst street protesters. or two, she and her backer sink into perfect flowing. I realise that assimilation can Her work seeks to harmonise these recordings harmony. The more the Kipsigis girls sing be my only mode of action; a muscle I have and locate the pulse that keeps communities the song’s title over and over, the more we been using from an early age. And I moving forward. are made aware that the Kipsigis girls were relax my bulging eyes. I remember Meiling in fact chanting the name of the American 1 Jin, Meiling. Strangers in a Hostile Landscape. Osnabrück, Jin’s words “One day I learnt / a secret Germany, Druck- & Verlagscooperative, 1993 country singer Jimmie Rodgers (incidentally, Sol LeWitt avoiding all blueprints and written plans. Jason Moran ‘If The Land Could Tell was inspired by After six weeks, all of the works were either countless conversations with family and destroyed or disposed of by the museum. friends. These conversations occurred at our home in Harlem, New York and centered LeWitt contributed Wall Drawing #26 to on sipping Ceretto Arneis and Barbaresco. the exhibition, a black pencil grid which When everyone departed, I found my way was to be filled with lines in four different to the Steinway and began scribbling down directions (vertical, horizontal and the two notes and these themes emerged. From diagonals) according to the drafter’s wishes. Piedmont to Harlem, we tell the stories of Art by Telephone, 1969 MCA produced a vinyl record catalogue If The Land Could Tell, 2019 our land.’ which compiled Katzive’s telephone conversations with the artists and here we reproduce LeWitt’s.

When it was installed in 1969, the drafters decided to fill each of the 3600 squares in the designated sixty by sixty-inch grid of one-inch squares, with all four lines. They 1’32” presumably arrived at their interpretation 8’09” in order to save time; it was a large-scale exhibition and the installation team Inspired in part by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy’s were responsible for the fabrication of Telephone Pictures (for which the artist many artworks. They could use a ruler to dictated his design for works over the phone draw long lines through multiple squares to a fabricator, emphasising the fact that an indiscriminately. Appearing as a uniform, intellectual approach to the creation of art hatched grid, the musicality LeWitt had was not inferior to an emotional approach), intended, which he references in his Art by Telephone was an extremely conversation with Katzive and is based on influential conceptually driven exhibition variation in repetition, was shortcircuited. hosted by the Museum of Contemporary As a result, in his 1972 article ‘All Wall Art Chicago in 1969. Occurring at a time Drawings’, LeWitt edited the title of when the art world was moving away from the work to specify a thirty-six-inch square, Jason Moran (b. 1975) is a musician and visual artist. His experimental approach to art-making minimalism and in a more conceptual and to include only one of the four embraces the intersection of objects and sound, pushing beyond the traditional in ways that direction, Art by Telephone asked artists line directions in each one-inch square. are inherently theatrical. Among the many artists with whom Moran has collaborated are Joan from the United States and Europe to Jonas, Kara Walker, Lorna Simpson, Glenn Ligon, Stan Douglas, Carrie Mae Weems, Adam communicate their ideas for artworks over Pendleton, Theaster Gates, Julie Mehretu, Ryan Trecartin, and Lizzie Fitch. Grounded in jazz the telephone to MCA curator David H. composition, his music also references minimalism, amongst other genres. He has cited the Katzive. MCA staff then executed the works work of Sol LeWitt as a significant inspiration and and has performed in LeWitt’s Wall Drawing based on the artists’ oral instructions, Retrospective at MASS MoCA, Massachusetts. Lydia Ourahmane the chaos you will know. Steve Reich body’ — to this end, it is performed (as last week i penned scrappy filling a whole the title implies) entirely by clapping. The page as one arm hung out a moving car basic material for the whole work is a single ‘our first night in hell’, we descended into rhythmic cell consisting of twelve beats. the lake to bed down on a dirt floor but This rhythm is modelled on the African morning rose, one petal at a time. i send a bell-rhythms Reich encountered during his text ‘water run dry’ message failed to studies of African drumming in Ghana, in send so i don’t bother again 1970, and is ambiguous in that it can imply a number of possible overarching time- Akfadou, 2019 Clapping Music, 1972 …waiting for a real emergency signatures. The entire span of Clapping Music is an exploration of this basic rhythmic unit i think about binding most of the time, using a variation of the phasing technique. between things, their need for each other, Both performers initially clap the rhythm another luxury. someone told me they found out in unison, then after eight to twelve a roman shield while working the field, it repetitions one performer shifts their pattern disintegrated in their hands as soon as it left by a single beat whilst the other remains the earth and touched naked air again, fixed. This process continues until it has the power of leaving, can you imagine the come full circle and the music returns to the 4’11” moment your body’s like — stop. soul 3’37” original unison pattern. rises and you choke. lately i meet people, beating the same dirt path, Clapping Music is the most refined example ‘i remember being in that room, everyone a thousand years, timeless figure indexing Clapping Music finds its roots in ideas of phasing in Reich’s output and neatly rolled out a picture of the (then) president passing as soon as it happens. like words explored in Steve Reich’s earliest acknowledged encapsulates two of his main musical concerns: and covered him in prayer, hands hovering that are written for no one to read, so instead work, It’s Gonna Rain, a seventeen-minute clarity and economy of means, and the idea over the image of his face, his hand held i send a friend; this is you, warping as a composition for magnetic tape composed in of a systematic process as the basis of a hi, in greeting of a loving crowd who waited shadow on my ceiling as i sleep under the 1965. In this seminal work Reich discovered long-term musical structure. hours in the sun just to watch him pass. night sky of your birth’ the techniques that became the kernel for fleets of black mercedes benz, c class, engines his entire body of work to the present day, run the same as their a’s and you gotta and some of the defining features of the eat, so. minimalist aesthetic — repetition, pulse, a its all an epitaph anyway, who’s to know. Lydia Ourahmane (b. 1992, Algeria) lives preoccupation with speaking patterns, and they said that it was a done deal, but between and works in Algiers. Taking cues from variation by a process known as ‘phasing’. you and i it was a fluke, cowering figures everyday encounters, her work often face to the floor in this experimental addresses the usurpation and dislodgement Clapping Music was composed during a period assemblage of something. on real; lately i in the socio-political framework. Her when Reich was systematically stripping his don’t know. everything seems to level because practice, which incorporates found objects, musical language back to its bare essentials. i cant decide anymore and someone will sculpture, video and sound, uses movement In his own words, the work was conceived always have something to say so why not deal as an antithesis to the lack inferred by with a desire to create a piece of music ‘that with something else and somewhere amidst restriction as a mode of control. would need no instrument beyond the human Caroline Shaw ‘Limestone & Felt presents two kinds of Three older female singers ‘In an isolated mountain village in surfaces — essentially hard and soft. These Piedmont, three old women sing an epic-lyric are materials that can suggest place (a ballad employing occasional chords in an cathedral apse, or the inside of a wool hat), ancient manner. stature, function, and — for me — sound (reverberant or muted). In Limestone & Between the Alps and the Appenine Felt, the hocketing pizzicato and pealing Massif, the gentle Po threads through the motivic canons are part of a whimsical, jewelled cities of the north from Turin mystical, generous world of sounds echoing and Milan to Bologna and Ferrara. Limestone & Felt, 2012 and colliding in the imagined eaves of a Piedmont: Nen Marìa nostra frighietta, 1954 This great green valley of the north has gothic chapel. These are contrasted with nourished a cultural tradition belonging the delicate, meticulous, and almost reverent more to the centre of Europe than to the placing of chords that, to our ears today, Mediterranean. It is a world of communal sound ancient and precious, like an antique dances, of voices blending in harmony jewel box. Ultimately, felt and limestone or equitable relationship between sturdy may represent two opposing ways we men and independent women, of non-pushing experience history and design our own sexual mores, and of a democratic and present.’ equalitarian political tradition.’ 5’42” 2’00” Folklorists Alan Lomax and Diego Carpitella collected the selections on the album ‘Italian Folk Music, Vol. 1: Piedmont, Emelia, Lombardy’, and this excerpt from their liner text provides a historical introduction to the northern Italian regions, represented on the album by their rural singers and bands — and even cattle (the first track features ‘a whole orchestra of bells’ sounding around the necks of cows as villagers move the animals to mountain pastures for the summer). Love songs, lullabies, tarantellas and waltzes, patriotic songs, ballads, yodelling, and drinking Caroline Shaw is a New York-based musician — vocalist, violinist, composer and producer — songs capture life marked by community who performs in solo and collaborative projects. She was the youngest recipient of the Pulitzer and tradition. Prize for Music in 2013 for Partita for 8 Voices, written for the Grammy-winning vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth, of which she is a member. The piece was inspired by Wall Drawing #305, a geometric instruction-based location drawing by Sol LeWitt which is installed at MASS MoCA, Massachusetts, until 2043. David Tremlett & Tim Bowman understanding of its narrative — a beginning, Keef Winter melody and replicating it through other an end and the variation therein. The loop sound generators such as synths and drum tapes condense this. Initially, we hear machines, I was interested to see the Prelude, 2002 the same thing over and over. Eventually, potential a singular musical refrain might however, its sameness is transformed. have in creating a context to frame the Repeated playing blurs auditory boundaries entire tape loop. 2’15” and we question our own ears, picking up new rhythms and feelings in the process. In this room we had volume, it is an art to fool Sometimes the feeling is unsettling, there someone therefore to fool someone is art, a Still Life, 2002 Appropriate Energy, 2019 being no conclusive arrival, but more often, constant energy always exists hahahahaha in the loop tapes as with the wall drawings, repetition translates to a kind of prevailing It is an art to fool someone therefore to fool 3’32” temporariness someone is art. In this room we had volume, a constant energy always exists hahahahaha Little was known or heard of the recordings Pastlude, 2002 until he met New Zealand musician A constant energy always exists hahahahaha; Tim Bowman in 1998. Bowman had expressed it is an art to fool someone therefore to fool great interest in using the loop tapes to someone is art … in this room we had volume.’ 2’00” formulate new compositions for an album. 3’38” He blended percussion, trombone, guitar, digital sounds and other noises with the From 1969 to 1971, David Tremlett made various loop tapes. In 2002 the album Hands ‘Appropriate Energy might be described field recordings and experiments on a up — Too Bad was released. as a sculptural assemblage made using UHER reel-to-reel tape machine, a format synthesisers and voice samples. It is he had been introduced to by Gavin Bryars. The first track, Prelude, incorporates constructed in a looping fashion evocative Keef Winter is a Northern Irish artist Taken together they are known as Recordings two of Tremlett’s loop tapes with a guitar of the early sound-works of David Tremlett. currently living and working in London. on Loop Tape and they capture a variety and digital samples played by Bowman. In Tremlett’s Recordings on Loop Tape His interests in sound, art and architecture of sounds locked into three to ten-second The seventh track, Still Life, merges another from 1969–71 he treats sound recording as are explored through an unconventional loops: people speaking and singing, friends two loops with the sound of water dripping a kind of raw material by collating seemingly fusion of performance, sculpture and tap dancing, noises from his studio and and an onion frying in a pan served by intentional statements with more arbitrary installation. He says, ‘I produce music as a the streets, the artist humming to himself Bowman. The last track, Pastlude, consists field recordings. I imagine he allowed for sculptor would carve an object’. He creates whilst working and recordings played of an accompanying guitar played by a certain measure of accident or chance to sound using electronics, the reverberation of in reverse. Bowman and a single loop made for a film play a role in how the resulting sound sheet steel, vocal samples and drumming. Tremlett produced in 1969 entitled Hot, bites flowed. He completed a PhD in philosophy and Tremlett’s loop tapes function in a way which Cold Art. sculpture entitled ‘The Handyman Aesthetic’ is comparable to the variations of repetitive I have incorporated several of Tremlett’s at Ulster University in 2013. He has toured forms seen in his wall paintings. The inherent loops in my piece. One of them, In This Room globally as a musician over the last two musicality we see in his art stems from We Had Volume, has an underlying melody decades with instrumental band Tracer its seriality which in turn depends on our of unknown origin. By extracting this AMC and thrash-dance band Not Squares. CREDITS COLOPHON

Clapping Music is reproduced under licence from London Published to accompany the exhibition ‘Sol LeWitt and David Symphony Orchestra Ltd taken from the LSO Live release Tremlett: Keeping Time’ curated by Guy Robertson and Tony LSO5073 Reich: Sextet, Clapping Music, Music for Pieces of Wood, Tremlett at the Ceretto Grapperia, La Morra CN, Italy. performed by the LSO Percussion Ensemble. Visit lsolive.co.uk for more information The Mahler & LeWitt Studios, run by Eva LeWitt and Guy Robertson, hosted Babatunde Doherty, Adam Gibbons, Hiba Ismail, Lydia Ourahmane and Keef Winter for an affiliated residency session guest curated by Tony Tremlett, 19 August–30 September, Chemirocha courtesy of SWP Records, from CD SWP 030 2019. ‘Kenyan Songs and Strings’ Editors: Guy Robertson and Tony Tremlett Design: Jena Myung Edition: 500 Printing and mastering: Deep Grooves

The editors would like to thank the Ceretto family for their generosity in providing a platform for a new generation of artists, whilst celebrating the Cappella del Barolo. Our thanks also go to Part I, Music in Twelve Parts by Philip Glass © 1974 Dunvagen the LeWitt and Tremlett families for their support and knowledge: Music Publishers, Inc. Used by permission. Courtesy of Orange our researches for this record only scratch the surface of an Mountain Music. important topic of conversation. Additional thanks go to Annalisa Praitano, Valentina Bonomo, Babatunde Doherty, Ferruccio Philip Glass, programme notes abridged from a text by Tim Page. Dotta, Laure Genillard, David Gothard, Marina Mahler, Jo Melvin, Jena Myung, National Gallery of Art Washington, Anthony Piedmont: Ninì, mon pupôn (lullaby) by Maria Glany from the Sansotta, Drew Smith (Dunvagen), Eva Wilson and all the artists recording entitled Italian Folk Music, Vol. 1: Piedmont, Emelia, for their contributions and enthusiasm. Lombardy, FW04261, courtesy of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. © 1972. Used by permission. The Cappella del Barolo can be found at the following co-ordinates: GPS 44°37’41.312”N 7°56’41.824”E Sol LeWitt, Art By Telephone: Excerpt from ‘Art by Telephone’ (exhibition catalogue), 1969 33 3/8 rpm LP, Collection Museum All rights reserved. No part of this publication or vinyl record of Contemporary Art Chicago Library and Archives, Audio may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, © MCA Chicago electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission.

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ceretto.com Carol LeWitt, Sol LeWitt and David Tremlett, 1995