Tue-Fri, 12-6pm
Sat, 11-6pm
Admission is free.

E X H I B I T I O N

Photo: Wadada Leo Smith, Multiamerica (detail)

Between Thought and Sound:
Graphic Notation in Contemporary Music

September 7–October 20, 2007

Opening Reception:
Friday, September 7, 6-8pm

Curated by Alex Waterman, Debra Singer, and Matthew Lyons

Exploring the intersection of drawing and sound, this show includes experimental scores by more than thirty composers who have relinquished traditional musical notation in favor of their own invented visual systems employing graphic or pictorial elements. Their musical compositions take the form of abstract drawings, videos, and digital renderings filled with complex pictograms, evocative mark-making, gestural symbols, and intricate codes of numbers, letters, and color. These highly personal vocabularies are the catalysts for a social process of translation and open-ended interpretation between composer and performer. Among the artists included in the exhibition are: Laura Andel, Robert Ashley, James Beckett, David Behrman, Cathy Berberian, Earle Brown, Cornelius Cardew, Tony Conrad, John Driscoll, Morton Feldman, Jon Gibson, Tom Johnson, Alison Knowles, Joan La Barbara, Annea Lockwood, Alvin Lucier, Miya Masaoka, Kaffe Matthews, Meredith Monk, Gordon Mumma, Anthony Jay Ptak, Steve Roden, Marina Rosenfeld, James Saunders, Michael J. Schumacher, Elliott Sharp, Wadada Leo Smith, Yasunao Tone, David Tudor, Stephen Vitiello, and Christian Wolff.

Exhibition Hours:
Tue-Fri, 12-6pm; Sat 11-6pm FREE

This exhibition is sponsored by Altria Group, Inc.

Additional support was provided by the American Center Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Thea Westreich and Ethan Wagner, and the Fifth Floor Foundation. Music programs at The Kitchen are made possible with generous support from the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, The New York State Music Fund, and with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

     

E X H I B I T I O N

Photo: Jose Alvarez

Jose Alvarez: The Visitors

November 1–December 22, 2007

Opening Reception:
Thursday, November 1, 6-8pm

Curated by Debra Singer

A painter, performance artist, and video maker, Jose Alvarez is known for his charismatic performances in which he “channeled” the 2,000-year-old spirit of the shaman Carlos, in front of live audiences and in media broadcasts across the globe in the United States, China, Australia, Europe, and South America. For his first New York solo exhibition, he presents a powerful combination of newly created videos, paintings, works-on-paper, and photography that continues his exploration of the complex intersection of mysticism, science, spirituality, and the construction of belief systems. Drawing on his long-standing dialogue with James Randi, the famous magician and renowned challenger of paranormal phenomena, and on his own recent visits to Houston’s NASA Space Flight Center and to Australia’s Parkes Observatory telescope, Alvarez explores how the unfolding of psychic hoaxes, the perceived supernatural energy of charmed objects, and the mysterious quests underlying space exploration all connect to the strong human desire for knowledge and transformation.

Exhibition Hours:
Tue-Fri, 12-6pm; Sat 11-6pm FREE

This exhibition is made possible with generous support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; Gavlak, West Palm Beach; and with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.