"Vociferous: Sound Works by 21 Contemporary Colombian Artists" Exhibition
Diapason
This event has ended.
Curated by Colombian electroacoustic composer and improviser Ricardo Arias, Vociferous: Sound Works by 21 Contemporary Colombian Artists presents an overview of the current state of sound art in Colombia. It is the first exhibition of its kind to be presented outside of the country, and one of a few recent curatorial initiatives to bring together sound works by artists from a variety of disciplines such as electroacoustic music, video art, sound installation art, and sound sculpture. One of the virtues of the term “sound art,” however vague and undefinable it might be, is precisely that it allows for such a grouping together of apparently disparate practices.
Carlos Gómez and Ricardo Arias started working together in 1988 in Barcelona where Gómez was a frequent guest performer with Sol Sonoro, an electroacoustic improvisation ensemble formed by Arias, Roberto García and Catalan guitarist and composer Luis Boyra. At roughly the same time they formed the proto-rock duo &NiL (which soon turned into a trio with the inclusion of García) and they collaborated regularly in ad-hoc projects until the mid 1990’s. In October, 2009 they renewed their musical collaboration with an appearance in the Phonos Concert Series that inaugurated the new performance space at the Universitat Pompeu i Fabra in Barcelona.
Installations: September 4, 11, 18, 25
Electroacoustic music in all its different guises has a relatively long history in Colombia. It is not surprising, then, that over half of the artists in Vociferous have developed their work, to a greater or lesser degree, within the electroacoustic music tradition: they are Mauricio Bejarano, Juan Reyes, Roberto García, Catalina Peralta, Julián Jaramillo, Daniel Prieto, Ana Maria romano, and Fabián Torres. Alba Fernanda Triana is a composer who, having studied composition and electroacustic music is now focusing her work on Interactive computer installations with specially designed and constructed sculptural interfaces. Carlos Gómez and Beatríz Eugenia Díaz are both trained as musicians and artists and for many years have experimented at the intersection of the two disciplines. Pedro Gómez-Egaña has an interest in improvisation, video and performance art. After studying composition and electroacoustic music, for the past 24 years Ricardo Arias has primarily been devoted to experimental
improvised music using unconventional instruments. Carlos Bonil, Jaidy Díaz, Adriana García, Jaime Rojas, Juan Sebastián Suanca, Leonel Vásquez, and Icaro Zorbar are all visual artists with a marked interest in sound and are part of the first generation of Colombian artists that could be labeled “sound artists.”
There is a bird called Lipaugus vociferans that can often be heard (but rarely seen) throughout the Amazon Basin. This bird sings quite loudly and persistently and its song is among the most characteristic sounds of the Amazon rainforest. The males gather roughly in concentric circles (leks) so that the spatial effect of their collective utterance is akin to that of a multichannel, plurifocal piece of music/sound art. This, and the fact that Lipaugus vociferans are found in Colombian territory, added to the sonority of the word, explain the main title of this show: Vociferous.
Ricardo Arias
Ricardo Arias has experimented with sound for the last 24 years, mainly as an improviser and composer. He uses unconventional instruments and found objects as sound sources for his work and since 1992 has focused almost exclusively on the balloon kit, a number of rubber balloons attached to a suitable structure and played with the hands and a set of accessories, including various kinds of sponges, pieces of Styrofoam, rubber bands, etc. Using this contraption as his main instrument, he collaborates with a large pool of experimental and improvising musicians from around the world, including Mazen Kerbaj, Jane Rigler, Chris Mann, Anne Wellmer, Andrew Drury, David Watson, Sean Meehan, Jack Wright, Tatsuya Nakatani, Vic Rawlings, Michel Doneda, Gabriel Paiuk , Leonel Kaplan, Nate Wooley, Pauline Oliveros, Hans Tammen, Miquel Jordá, Carlos Gómez, Roberto García, Alex Waterman, Juan Sebastián Suanca, Miguel Frasconi, Michael Zerang, and Pascal Boudreault, among many others. Since 2007, he is an Assitant Professor in the Art Department at Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia.
Media
Schedule
from September 02, 2010 to September 25, 2010
Installations run Saturdays, September 4, 11, 18, 25, 2pm-8pm
Opening Reception on 2010-09-02 from 18:00 to 20:00
Artist(s)
Ricardo Arias, Carlos Gómez et al.