Music at the Armory

[imomus]

On Monday I saw The Armory Show, a vast and rather exciting art trade fair held annually on two piers on the Hudson. Ran into all sorts of people I knew from Berlin and Tokyo. Here's a selection of photos of artworks relating to music. Brian Dewan and his brother make primitive electronic sequencers that look like grandfather clocks. (Dewan is also a brilliant composer of folk songs about idol-worship and maker of slide presentations illustrating the prohibitions of the Book of Leviticus.) The highpoint of the show for me, though, was getting to watch Luke Fowler's brilliant film about composer (and communist) Cornelius Cardew. I'd already enjoyed Fowler's film about R.D. Laing, which I saw at the ICA in London. Fowler makes documentaries about counter-cultural figures from the 1960s and 70s. They work as documentaries you might see on TV, but his techniques are much more radical, his textures much more aesthetic.