(Nov 19) NMA 1985 Los Angeles Installations
Los Angeles installations - This post is kind of like starting blocks of where to look for more information; most of what follows are taken from the official program, for the 1985 festival. The launch/opening dates were:
Oct 31 - Nov 10 Fontana, Galasso, Hollis & Turner, Odland, Philips, Wilhite
Oct 31 - Nov 15 Buchens, Freeman
Oct 31 - Nov 30 Lloyd, Marioni, Soltes/Nancarrow
Nov 6 - February 11, 1986 Michael Brewster
Bill Buchen
From a site named creativetime.org, this came up, credited to Lisa Kahone in 1982:
Bill Fontana
Bill Fontana is a composer, audio artist, radio producer and sound sculptor who has produced and developed major sound projects in New York, San
Discogs notes there is a 1985 recording by Bill Fontana named Acoustic Journey which was a cassette apparently created in Japan and which has “76 wants” for it! https://www.discogs.com/release/7871982-Bill-Fontana-Acoustical-Journey
Meanwhile, we do have this short interview in which he talks about his early years…
Doug Hollis with Richard Turner Garden of Voices
From Richard Turner’s website - go to this link for the full sized photos:
http://www.turnerprojects.com/public-art
scroll down to the bottom (it’s listed as 1986, though):
At the 1982 NMA Chicago festival, Doug Hollis presented a different work, and it was reviewed by (future) NMA Los Angeles Director, Carl Stone in a prestigious music journal:
Hollis, Douglas Sound Shade in C Major
Second stop, then, was Promontory Park out on Lake Michigan for a piece of sound sculpture by Douglas Hollis titled Sound Shade in C Major. The sculpture consisted of three sets of scaffolding, each carrying rows of streamers at the top which were excited by the ever-present wind, producing an enjoyable unpitched texture, the characteristics of which varied from scaffold to scaffold. Additionally, the hollow metal poles of the scaffolds had small holes cut in them, producing whistles of varied pitches as the wind rushed through them. The effect was poetic, but was undermined considerably by the clamor of noisy lakeshore bathers nearby.
- Carl Stone, "Two Reports" Perspectives of New Music, Autumn 1981
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From the Renaissance Society webpage:
JUL 5–AUG 31, 1982
DOUGLAS HOLLIS SOUND SHADE IN C MAJOR
Sound Shade in C Major uses a series of aeolian organ pipes which function as both a compositional and structural framework within which other strung structures can be pitched, like sonic tents. These ‘tent skins’ are made of an industrial strapping material which has the wonderful quality of making the wind’s passage both audible and visible. Low floating platforms are incorporated beneath the shades, which people can sit on, becoming in a sense ‘airborne,’ celebrating the windscape.” Douglas Hollis, Summer, 1982
Installation of Sound Stage in C Major by Douglas Hollis at Promontory Point was sponsored by The Renaissance Society in conjunction with The Museum of Contemporary Art and Mayor Byrne’s New Music America ‘82.
https://renaissancesociety.org/exhibitions/319/douglas-hollis-sound-shade-in-c-major/
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Gary Lloyd Loop Clue FM 88.1
Tom Marioni The Marriage of Art and Music
An Artforum review (date not on the website) by Bill Berkson of Marioni’s works included this about the work:
The most recent piece and the magnum opus of the show was The Marriage of Art and Music (For Los Angeles), 1985. A large still-life tableau partially activated by spotlighting and “framed” by a waist-high railing in the foreground, it is a solidified quandary, a neat scrambling of the muses’ accoutrements, a verge signified by the inclination of one shadow (that of a copper plate in the outline of a violin sound box) toward another (a telescope on a tripod with two white twelve-inch LPs appended, its outline equating an oldfashioned movie camera). The “marriage” as announced isn’t so much occurring as pending, as the last note of the implied processional drifts away.
Eva Stoles - Conlon Nancarrow installation
Bruce Odland Rippleworks
Bruce Odland’s own website has a photo and - cool! - a reproduction of a review of the work in Option magazine: https://bruceodland.net/1985/11/20/rippleworks-1985-new-music-america/
Liz Phillips Cymbal
This is a one minute Vimeo video from the work being presented the same year, but at San Diego University:
Robert Wilhite
His website has two photographs for works created in 1985, one this GYRO cone for Pershing Square and the other instruments created for a Dallas Concert. Not sure whether the GYRO cone was part of what was presented in Los Angeles, though.
https://www.robertwilhite.com/#/musical-sculpture-and-performances/
Michael Brewster An Exit to Sculpture
I found this website which is the description of an exhibit named Frequency from 2020 at the Baik Art Gallery in Los Angeles, and it includes one photo of the above-named work. https://baikart.com/michael-brewster-frequency/
