Stereo Sights and Sounds
Curated by Josh Gosselin & Ana Stjepanović
Featuring work by Michael Brown, Ben Godward, Adam Green, Eli Keszler, Mekia Machine, Devon Marinac, Gisela McDaniel, Hermann Nitsch, JJ Pinckney, Reneé Stout, Sam Tuvesson, Marie Watt, and Mark Wilson Jr.
"Listening allows us to focus on the invisible dynamics that are hidden behind a visual perception and its linguistic organization. It gives us access to what is there if we look past the object into the complex plurality of its production."
- Salomé Voegelin, Sonic Possible Worlds
Sound has a stronghold on our experience of time, space, and place. It signals to us where we are. If we wish to escape our circumstances, sound offers idealized spaces for us to inhabit. The single strike of a drum, an effortless yet puissant motion, can harken a mother's heartbeat, a sweaty Ridgewood basement, a Southern dwelling of yesteryear, or a computer-generated tone of tomorrow. Our interior world, of all things, uses these vibrations to help us file away our experience of everything external. The tone of someone's voice recalls their likeness more than the content of their words. The visual artist is no stranger to this process and its effects. They know its power and gleefully flip it on its head. In turn, music and sound become another tool for creators looking to further expose their interiority, devoid of matter, to supplement art forms that are inextricably linked to materiality. This exhibition highlights objects created with the utmost consideration for sound as a material in its own regard. Visual mediums of painting, drawing, sculpture, video, and installation are presented to either mirror or complement recorded, imagined, or live sounds. A "stereo" image artwork ensues.
The sonic counterparts in this exhibition vary from music adored or created by the artists themselves, to soundscapes that hearken peoples, places, and time-spaces that artists use to aid in negotiating their own identities. The exhibition's sonic material will be presented in three distinct formats. The opening reception will feature a musical performance by David Leon and Grey McMurray. The performance will unfold in response to various objects featured in the exhibition. Additional sounds will be activated in the space when works are engaged with, while the remainder will be included in an exhibition playlist meant to accompany viewers as they experience the works.
From album cover artworks created by musician Adam Green for his latest release, to Mark Wilson Jr's "sounding" mask, dedicated to the Harlem Hellfighters, an African-American infantry group recognized for spreading American "jazz" to Europe in World War One, each artist's practice approaches sound from varying vantage points. An investigation of sound making apparatuses is also at play, from Michael Brown's sculpture made from melted down record vinyl, to Eli Keszler's large scale abstraction depicting the piano's audible frequency range.
Josh Gosselin is a New York based independent curator and musician. As a member of the University of Miami's 2018 class of "Plus One Scholars," Gosselin's interdisciplinary studies of jazz performance, art history, and ethnomusicology continue to inform his current curatorial projects. Recent projects include curations for SALT NYC & Apple Music, Chashama, and Van Der Plas Gallery.
Ana Stjepanović has produced many multidisciplinary events over the course of her 20+ years of experience in the worlds of fashion, design and art. She is interested in how art can propose new perspectives and question collective memories, and her passion for connecting people through culture comes through in her subscription email newsletter, The Ana List. Stjepanović has a MA in Visual Culture from NYU and is the Gallery Manager at Marc Straus Gallery.
