Theo Ganz Studio • 44 Washington Avenue • Brooklyn, NY • 917.318.2239Elegy in a Variable Key is an exhibition of fifteen abstract paintings and one major work on paper by six artists as well as the vocals of the group Weave. The visual artists are Sun Ok Chun, Joy Walker, Andrea Spiros, Linda Shere, C Bangs and Paulien Lethen. Weave includes the vocalists Timothy Hill, Marjorie Johnson, Seth Markel and Sanjay Cherubala.
The vocals of Weave are experienced as pure vibrations of the singing voice – with or without words – and come from a place both primal and sacred - part lamentation, part offering and prayer. An elegy is a song or poem of mourning, and the solo and ensemble sounds of Weave add one more emotive dimension to the exhibition, in a variable key. I thought of Hill’s performances at the Living Room and Sin-e during which he would improvise vibrations of his voice during a folksong. The effect on the listener was profound in a haunting sort of way and the mood lingered long after the song was over.
The members of Weave have been meeting on a weekly basis in Hill’s apartment for the past eight years and have performed most often in broader contexts than the concert venue, usually where other community-building activities are talking place, such as P.S. 122’s Spaghetti Dinners, Refuse and Resist’s 2004 Courageous Resister Awards, Minetta Brook’s Tastemaker Dinner at the Whitney Museum, The Friends Meeting House ArtQuake, etc. This is their first performance expressly for an exhibition of visual art.
Hill describes Weave as a “vocal research group that recognizes that many of the world’s great vocal music traditions arose from an innate human response to the rhythms of work, travel, ceremony and prayer. Weave is dedicated to connecting to the basic impulse that gives rise to song, creating an organic, integrated music from the ground up.” The idea to present an exhibition germinated several years ago after visiting the studios of four of the painters during a SONYA studio stroll. After revisiting the studios in May 2006, reconnecting with Walker after some 30 years, and being introduced to the work of Lethen, the idea was rekindled and the theme of elegy emerged. Elegy in a Variable Key speaks not only to the accelerating universal experiences of pain and suffering, loss and mourning, but also to the tasks of focussing cohesively and creatively on the future in a spirit of renewal and realization.
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The paintings selected range the spectrum
from the monochromatic works by Spiros and Lethen;
to the vibrantly colorful and lyrical realms of Chun and Walker;
to the floating, celestial worlds of Bangs and Shere. The
surfaces for these pieces include wood, cutout metal, mirrored
doors and canvas. The sixteen-part collage on paper
by Andrea Spiros, entitled The Offspring of Eros and Thanatos, incorporates pencil,
velum, wire, hair and gravestone rubbings. The Offspring installation
is 90 x 110 inches and was last shown at the Queens Museum of Art.
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