The Graham Foundation is pleased to present a live performance of The Thousand Symphonies, a seminal work by Fluxus artist Dick Higgins. In 1962, Higgins wrote a series of events called Danger Music, which were designed to alternately put the body of the performer, composer, or audience member at risk. In 1968, he realized one of these pieces by having a New Jersey police officer fire a machine gun at a few hundred sheets of orchestral music paper. An ensemble later played the holes. An act of simultaneous destruction and creation, the gesture emphasized the use of guns for a purpose other than killing Viet Cong and scattering protestors.

Recently, Rosenthal Fine Art, in collaboration with the Dick Higgins Estate, arranged with the City of Chicago to have four Chicago Police officers shoot new notation paper. On November 21 at the Graham Foundation, a live orchestra led by Stephen Burns will play the new sheets following the presentation of a short film documenting their creation. The ensemble will borrow the form of Stravinsky's L'histoire du Soldat (The Soldier’s Tale),with instruments from every section of the orchestra, plus electric guitar, which effectively updates the orchestration.

Special Thanks to the Chicago Police Department, James and Susan Allen, and to the Fulcrum Point New Music Project ensemble:

Stephen Burns, artistic director/conductor
Janice Misurell-Mitchell, flute
Lewis Kirk, bassoon
Jeremy Ruthrauff, saxophone
Andy Baker, trombone
Tina Laughlin, percussion
Alison Attar, harp
Steve Roberts, electric guitar
Reiko Seko, violin
Collins Trier, bass

The Graham Foundation is pleased to welcome architect Carlo Caldini, one of the founding members of Italian avant-garde Gruppo 9999. Caldini will discuss the history and philosophy of Gruppo 9999, including its contributions to MoMA’s 1972 exhibition Italy: The New Domestic Landscape.

Founded in 1967 by Giorgio Birelli, Carlo Caldini, Fabrizio Fiumi, and Paolo Galli while they were students of architecture at the University of Florence, Gruppo 9999 was conceived as a research and work group dedicated to architectural experimentation and sustainability. Its large-scale projects and environments brought to the forefront questions of ecology, global transformation, and man’s relationship to the environment. Notably, in 1972, Gruppo 9999 won MoMA’s “Competition for Young Designers” with its project the Vegetable Garden House. Included in MoMA’s ground-breaking exhibition Italy: The New Domestic Landscape, the Vegetable Garden House developed out of Gruppo 9999’s earlier experiments conducted in Space Electronic, an avant-garde discothèque the group founded and designed in Florence in 1969.

Carlo Caldini (b. 1941, Florence, Italy) is a Florence-based architect whose work combines professional practice, teaching, and academic research. In 1964, together with architects Mario Preti and Walter Natali, he travelled extensively in India to study Chandigarh and other Indian cities. From July 1967 to February 1968, he and Preti visited the United States and Canada to study new university campuses. The program was sponsored by the Council on Leaders and Specialists, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, US Department of State.

For more information on the exhibition, Environments and Counter Environments. “Italy The New Domestic Landscape,” MoMA, 1972, click here.

Image: 9999, Bedroom for the Vegetable Garden House, 1972. Courtesy of 9999 Archive. Environments and Counter Environments. "Italy: The New Domestic Landscape," MoMA, 1972.

Support for this presentation has been provided by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago.

For more information on the exhibition, Environments and Counter Environments. "Italy: The New Domestic Landscape,” MoMA, 1972, click here.

Rajon ki Baoli, Rajasthan, India.© Victoria Lautman.

Stepwells are a form of architecture unique to South Asia that first appeared in rudimentary form in India between the 2nd and 4th centuries A.D. Sunk deep into the earth, these underground edifices not only harvested and preserved water, but also functioned as civic centers, temples, cool retreats, and caravan stops. However, as many stepwells have been barricaded, filled in, repurposed, or altogether destroyed, they are quickly disappearing from historic record.

Journalist Victoria Lautman is a frequent traveler to India and former contributing editor for Architectural Record, Metropolitan Home, HG, Art+Auction, and Chicago magazine. In India, she’s written for The Hindu, Architectural Digest, Vogue, and GQ. Her writing about India has also appeared in Town & Country, ArchDaily.com, and The Huffington Post. Lautman’s long-running radio programs were heard on WFMT and WBEZ.

This talk is co-sponsored by AIA Chicago and Society of Architectural Historians.

Related Links
Society of Architectural Historians
http://www.sah.org/conferences-and-programs/events-and-opportunities/2013/09/25/subterranean-ghosts-india-s-vanishing-stepwells
AIA Chicago
http://www.aiachicago.org/events.asp#November2013

In his Chicago solo debut, Mark Fell presents new tonal work from music he developed as guest composer at the historic Elektronmusikstudion in Stockholm.

Fell is widely known for combining popular music styles, such as electronica and techno, with more academic approaches to computer-based composition that draw on algorithmic and mathematical systems. His recent musical practice is increasingly informed by non-European musics, evident in two linked works, Multistability and UL8, which explore a number of unfamiliar timing and tuning systems. In addition to recorded works, Fell produces installation pieces, often using multiple speaker systems. Although well versed in the use of ambisonics, his work in this area is characterized by “non-illusion based” approaches, where multiple wave shapes are spatially distributed to form complex synthetic sonic environments.

Mark Fell (b. 1966, Rotherham, England) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Sheffield, England. After studying experimental film and video art at Sheffield City Polytechnic, he reverted to earlier interests in computational technology, music, and synthetic sound. In 1998 he initiated a series of critically acclaimed collaborative and solo record releases on labels including Mille Plateaux, Line, Editions Mego, Raster Noton, and Alku. Fell received an honorary mention in the digital music category at Prix ARS Electronica (Linz) and was shortlisted for the Quartz award for his contribution to research in digital music. He has also been involved in several academic research projects, including a 2003 project led by British Algorist Ernest Edmonds at Loughborough University in the UK which explored the philosophy of technology in relation to contemporary art.

This performance is presented in partnership with Lampo. Founded in 1997, Lampo is a non-profit organization for experimental music, sound art, and intermedia projects. Visit www.lampo.org.

The Graham Foundation is pleased to welcome architect and designer Emilio Ambasz, curator of MoMA’s groundbreaking 1972 exhibition Italy: The New Domestic Landscape, and Mark Wasiuta, co-curator of the Graham’s current exhibition Environments and Counter-Environments, for a talk on October 31, 2013. Following an introduction by Mark Wasiuta, Emilio Ambasz will read two texts that critically reflect on the historic 1972 exhibition.

Emilio Ambasz is an Argentinean architect and designer. He received his Bachelor and Master of Architecture degrees from Princeton University. From 1969 to 1976, Ambasz was Curator of Design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where he developed numerous influential exhibitions on architecture and design. Ambasz’s architectural projects, which explore the poetic potential and public value of natural landscapes, include the San Antonio Botanical Conservatory (1988), the ACROS Fukuoka Prefectural International Hall (1994), and the Banca dell’Occhio in Mestre-Venice, Italy (2009).

Mark Wasiuta teaches at the Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation, Columbia University where he is the Director of Exhibitions and Co-Director of the Masters of Science in Critical, Curatorial and Conceptual Practices in Architecture (CCCP). He studied at the University of British Columbia, Princeton University, and Harvard University. His research focuses on postwar environmental design, an area of shared interest at the base of his collaborative office, the International House of Architecture.  He is the recipient of recent grants from the Graham Foundation, the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and the Banff New Media Institute. Recent curated and designed exhibitions include, Tony Oursler, UFOs and Effigies, No Longer Art: Salvage Art Institute, Collecting Architecture Territories, and Operators’ Exercises: Open Form in Film and Architecture. He is co-editor and co-author of Dan Graham’s New Jersey, and has recent articles published in Domus, Art Lies, Praxis, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, and Explorations.

For more information on the exhibition, Environments and Counter Environments. “Italy The New Domestic Landscape,” MoMA, 1972, click here.

Image: Italy: The New Domestic Landscape, 1972. Photograph by Cristiano Toraldo di Francia, courtesy of Emilio Ambasz.

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