Tuning in to the art of sound
An exhibition appealing to the ears rather than the eyes will open at Wexford Arts Centre on September 2, in association with the arts advocacy group Open Gorey.
The show curated by the Gorey-based artist Richard Carr is called ‘Hammer/Anvil/Stirrup’ and will feature sound installations by Richard and fellow artists David Beattie, Edgardo Rudnitzky and John Wynne that seek to explore the nature of sound and the practice of listening.
The title is taken from the three smallest bones in the human body which are found in the middle ear and perform as an interface between the inner and outer worlds of sound.
The official opening at 3 pm will be followed by a gallery conversation between the exhibiting artists and the Wexford County Arts Officer Liz Burns and a wine reception.
‘There are only five works in the show because they take up a lot of space and some of them move around the gallery. It’s quite minimal but the sounds fill out the space’, said Arts Centre Visual Arts Manager Catherine Bowe.
Coinciding with the exhibition, the Wexford composer and musician Laura Hyland will lead an experimental sound workshop for children on Culture Night on Friday, September 22 from 5pm to 7pm.
Responding to Hammer/Anvil/Stirrup, the children will be encouraged to listen closely and imagine how the sounds from the exhibition could fit into their own sound worlds which they will create on the night.
The event is open to children aged 10 and over and the participants will be asked to bring along their favourite noisy object which can be anything from sauce lids to fidget spinners. Electronic toys or balls are not encouraged. Places are limited and booking is advised.
The exhibition will run in the lower and upper galleries of Wexford Arts Centre from Monday, September 4 to Saturday, October 7.
David Beattie is an artist living and working in Dublin. He has exhibited widely at home and abroad including USA, Canada, Brussels, and Paris and has received a number of Arts Council bursaries
Richard Carr lives in Wexford and Dublin and has established himself as one of Ireland’s prominent young artists exhibiting alongside leading lights such as Bill Viola, Dorothy Cross, Alice Maher, Salome Voegelin, Eva Rothschild and others. He graduated with a MFA from NCAD, Dublin in 2013 and is due to have his first international solo exhibition in London in 2018.
Edgardo Rudnitzky is an Argentinian-born sound artist, composer, and percussionist who has been based in Berlin since 2003 and has exhibited internationally. His works explore the nature of sound in its physical/material context and he has incorporated this practice in theatrical settings, dance and films.
John Wynne is an award-winning artist whose diverse work includes large-scale sound installations in galleries and public spaces, delicate sculptural works, photographs that produce sound, flying radios and‘composed documentaries’ that hover on the borders between abstraction and documentation.
His work on language endangerment includes a project with click languages in the Kalahari Desert.
He was artist-in-residence at two major centres for cardiothoracic and abdominal organ transplants, resulting in a book, a half-hour BBC Radio commission and several exhibitions, most recently Transplant and Life at the Hunterian Museum in London.