Tim Hawkinson "One Man Band"
The Pace Gallery (545 W 22nd St)
This event has ended.
Tim Hawkinson’s interest in both the visible and audible production of sound, which dates back to his childhood when he made a number of musical instruments from scratch, has been a recurring theme throughout his career, informing his investigations into sensory experience and his idiosyncratic, sound-producing sculptures. In 1993, the artist scratched the surface of a huge rotating black disc while listening to music, following the rhythm with one hand and the melody with the other to create a record of his aesthetic response to music in "Record Drawing (Conlan Nancarrow Studies for Player Piano Vol. 2)." Another early work, "Music Box (Time in a Bottle)," 1994, one of Hawkinson’s first motorized pieces, created from an end table, a thermos, and steak knives nailed together, will also be on view. "Ranting Mop Head (Synthesized Voice)," 1995, is a mop outfitted with tubing, air pumps, and valves, attached to a timber lectern which supports a player-piano that forms words without the use of computer chips or recordings, uttering phrases such as “Are you my mommy?” or “I want to mop your violin” in its monotone voice.
In "Drip" (2002), motion detectors trigger the release of water droplets into steel buckets from twelve outstretched arms composed of tightly twisted plastic sheeting and tarpaulins, creating randomly generated drumming sounds that fall within rhythmic patterns. Other works on view in the exhibition include "Lophophore" (2006-7), a bondo sculpture rising more than 7 feet in the air, projecting sensory organs from the ends of its twisted arm, and "Deposition" (2007), a 15-foot tree branch rigged with a slide whistle and a motor that drives a beaded string through a series of wooden wheels, producing loopy sounds which rise and fall.
Media
Schedule
from July 01, 2010 to July 30, 2010