Shafer on Visual Music @ the Hirshhorn

(Kathleen Shafer, a local artist and fellow blogger, provides the following review of Visual Music now showing at the Hirshhorn.)

Visual Music, which opened Wednesday night at the Hirshhorn, is a show worth seeing. If you happen to be in town this Saturday the 25th, then I would recommend going during the hours of 9:30 PM and 2 AM, when the museum will be open for Cosmic Drift - a “light show visual music experience” - by Joshua White and Gary Panter and music by Norman Hathaway. Hey, any museum that is open until 2 AM is at the top of the cool list in my book. So hop a cab over there after you’re good and wasted from the earlier part of your Saturday night. Of course, you may want to moke-say an at-fay oint-jay, if you happen to be of that nature, and you are guaranteed a delightful show. For the rest of us who don’t partake in special brownies, the show has some very strong pieces to delight your senses nonetheless.

The strength in Visual Music is by far the black and white film about half way through the show. I’d be able to tell you the name and artist, but the website for the show surprisingly doesn’t mention it, and I didn't write it down when I was there (Sorry!) This twenty-minute video is beautifully hand-made, quiet and profound. The geometric shapes dance across the screen, with all of their beautiful imperfections. With this piece, you can truly imagine the music that inspired it. This piece is, in fact, visual music. While watching it Disney’s Fantasia came to mind - I’m certain there are many of you who may hate Fantasia and Mr. Disney himself for that matter, but I think it was a genius film and a great idea (he actually wanted to make a new movie each year but was not met with encouragement). Anyway.

The paintings, photography and drawings are a smart way to start the show, and the transition from 2-D into the many video pieces is decent. A better mix of the two would have been more desirable, but I think the show as a whole is well put together. Jim Hodges Corridor is especially cool.

Georgia O’Keefe’s pieces are gorgeous, as well those of Paul Klee. I will say I’m not sure just what Steiglitz’ Equivalent cloud photographs were in the show, but, well, you could stretch some meaning into that if you had to (but only if you had to).

Some of the neon-color video pieces, with their added hippy music, are just a bit much. While the earlier pieces in the show are clearly influenced by the music, these recent works are illustrating the music - think Janis Joplin, Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix. And while they may be able to stand in their own right as art, in the Hirshhorn, for pete’s sake, well - you might ask yourself - This is art? In the Hirschhorn? For pete’s sake!

Maybe it’s just the stigma that comes with the idea of hippies and the music of their generation. I mean, they may have stood for peace and love, but did they have to be so stoned all the time? It makes it very hard to take them seriously. Whereas with classical music, well, there’s no bad stigma there. People who listen to classical music are smart and read books and talk about important stuff.

It’s not surprising that Visual Music happens to fall in the summer tourist-season months, but it is worth a closer look from the locals. This show is on view until September 11th, so you have no excuse for not going, and no, “I can’t find my bong” is not a good excuse. Borrow a friend’s. Sheesh.

Comments

[Amy]

I think the black and white films you're referring to are by Oskar Fischinger, and he did indeed work on Disney's Fantasia, the first part anyway. There are also b&w films by Walter Ruttman.

The context of the films makes more sense if you hear one of the curator's lectures, I think there is another walk through of the exhibit on July 7. See the Hirshhorn's calendar.

I highly recommend the interactive website: www.hirshhorn.si.edu/visualmusic/index.html

There are images (with artist names!) and some video.

[Kathleen]

Thanks Amy! Yeah, the website on the show is v. good.

[Gabriel Rey-Goodlatte]

There were 3 (at least) black and white films, by Eggeling, Ruttman and Fischinger.

The articles in the exhibition's catalogue (coffee-table book) do a good job of contextualizing the work in the show. The articles trace the history of the idea of visual music, and give a lot of really interesting and useful background information on the ideas of the artists, and the connections between them. Lots of beautiful paintings and stills in the catalogue, too. What I wish for is a DVD compilation of the film works in the show (but maybe that kind of mass-distribution conflicts with high-art curatorial practices or something).

There's a pretty interesting article in Art Forum about the show (and Sons et Lumieres at Pompidou in Paris).

I don't think pot would really help, except maybe to make the weaker work in the show seem more significant than it actually is. Something a bit more hallucinogenic could be nice, but I really don't think drugs are necessary for this show.

Some of the work in the show is really incredible, and really approaches synaesthetic effect. I love Oskar Fischinger's work - what I especially love about it is the way he attempts a tight sync relationship between sound and image - for me this is essential for film which aims at synaesthesia. Len Lye also does this nicely, but I think his best work was absent from this show. Harry Smith's stuff is beautiful - again, his more sophisticated work isn't really in the show. Jordan Belson's films are gorgeous, and have a very subtle, intricate, delicate touch. "Samadhi" really feels synaesthetic at points. His piece which was commisioned for the show ("Epilogue") seems like a real departure from his old work in the sense that it uses a piece of classical music rather than electronic music. All of the work in the show is interesting in a historical context - there's a nice chronology here.

I was a bit dissappointed by the fact that nothing was projected on film (although the digital tranfers do look really nice). I imagine this might have had to do with preservation (or availability) issues. I was also surprised that there was no Stan Brakhage in the show - he's definitely mentioned in the catalogue, but it would have been nice to see some of his work (especially if it were on film). I guess his work has less of a need for exposure, since there's that Criterion DVD, but the one time I saw his work projected from film (at the Whitney Biennale) it blew me away. Film is just gorgeous in a way that video can't be.

I think visual music asks to be developed in a number of ways, and this show lays out a nice context for people who are working in this area now.
Visual music performance has a long way to go, in my opinion.

I perform synaesthetic music (visual and sonic simultaneously); check out my website - http://www.fingerfunk.net/ - under construction at the moment, but it should be up within a week of this posting with some video clips and demonstrations.

[CK]

For more about the films in the Visual Music exhibition please vist:

http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/VMFilms.htm

Center for Visual Music preserves, curates and exhibits visual music films. The online store has work available by Oskar Fischinger, Len Lye, Jordan Belson and others.

The Oskar Fischinger website is at www.oskarfischinger.org