Abstraction: Stephen Vitiello
Stephen Vitiello, Four Color Sound
Shown here: Stephen Vitiello, Four Color Sound (Blue)
“Stephen Vitiello’s fourth solo exhibition at the gallery features Four Color Sound (2008), an immersive environment divided into four sections: Blue, Red, Yellow, and Green. It was originally commissioned by DiverseWorks, a non-profit exhibition space in Houston, and features lighting design by Jeremy Choate. The 28-minute audio cycle is accompanied by choreographed lighting effects that charge the foggy room with four consecutive color segments. Each audio section combines sounds produced using electronic synthesizers with excerpts from Vitiello’s documentary field and instrumental recordings. For example, in the Blue section one hears birds and insects recorded in the Brazilian Amazon. The Yellow section consists of instrumental sounds from the group Beta Collide, including the trumpet, flute and percussion. There are frogs recorded in Virginia in the Green section and, finally, thunder in the Red section. Although each section is a study in monochromatic color and sound texture, the cross fades are sublime moments of transition.” (from The Project, New York’s press release).
Also, see the other three colors:
And you can download a great mp3 interview with Vitiello about the project here.
All Those Vanished Engines (stereo excerpt, no voice)
All Those Vanished Engines - Stephen Vitiello
from a 19-channel installation commissioned by MASS MoCA
”Sound artist Stephen Vitiello created All Those Vanished Engines especially for the MASS MoCA boiler house. This building is a relic from the industrial past of the site and was once used to heat the factory buildings that now make up the museum. Starting with the inherent resonance of the pipes and metal drums in the space, Vitiello built a layered sound installation that can be explored throughout the first two floors of the building.”
Listen
On the second segment of this week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast, artists Steve Roden and Stephen Vitiello join me to discuss their recent collaboration in Houston. In association with the exhibition “Silence” at The Menil Collection, Roden and Vitiello performed a sound piece at The Rothko Chapel. Even cooler: Roden and Vitiello have also provided an extended audio clip from their improvised performance, The Spaces Contained in Each. It’s at the end of this week’s show, in stereo. BONUS: I’ll have a second audio clip from their performance on MANPodcast.com on Monday! Click here to follow MANPodcast.com on Tumblr.
The show’s first segment remembers Austrian artist Franz West, who died two weeks ago at age 65. West was one of European art’s most Puckish innovators. His art was playful and sly — he often encouraged viewers to pick up and play with or to sit down on his work — but it was also deeply rooted in the intellectual history of Vienna, his lifelong hometown.
Joining me to discuss West’s life and work is Darsie Alexander, the chief curator at the Walker Art Center. In 2008 Alexander curated West’s only American retrospective, which opened at the Baltimore Museum of Art and traveled to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
To download the program directly to your PC/mobile device, click here. Subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes or RSS. See images of artworks discussed on the program.
Image: Photo of Vitiello greeting the crowd before the Roden/Vitiello performance at The Rothko Chapel on July 28. Photo by David A. Brown, courtesy of the Menil.
Repacked By Ezekiel Honig
Stephen Vitiello + MachinefabriekRepacked By Ezekiel Honig
Stephen Vitiello + Machinefabriek
Birds In A Box
Week 3: History/Narrative: Stephen Vitiello
“A Bell for Every Minute,” a site-specific installation by the musician and sound artist Stephen Vitiello, will give strollers an urban concert of sorts. Tucked in a semi-enclosed tunnel between West 13th and West 14th Streets will be a sound installation made from different kinds of bells. Mr. Vitiello recorded church bells and cat bells, bells on bicycles, those coming from carousels and those played in yoga studios.
There are the sounds of more famous bells too, like the opening one of the New York Stock Exchange and the United Nations Japanese Peace Bell, as well as the old Dreamland Pier bell days after it was recovered last year from the ocean off Coney Island, where it had been lost in a fire in 1911.
During park hours, individual bells will ring each minute from speakers throughout the tunnel, and a chorus of them will sound in unison at the top of each hour.”
Listen
With 10 days left in The Menil Collection’s “Silence” exhibition, here’s a special sound-art bonus for MANPodcast.com visitors and followers: A clip of Steve Roden and Stephen Vitiello’s The Spaces Contained in Each (2012), a live improvisation performed live at Houston’s Rothko Chapel on July 28!
Here’s the background: The second segment of Episode No. 40 of the Modern Art Notes Podcast featured Roden and Vitiello discussing The Spaces Contained in Each. Performed in association with “Silence” at the Menil, Roden and Vitiello’s work was inspired by their shared interest in John Cage, and in particular Cage’s 4’33”.
To download Episode No. 40 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast directly to your PC/mobile device, click here. Subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes or RSS. See images of artworks discussed on the program.
Image: Stephen Vitiello and Steve Roden performing at The Rothko Chapel, Houston on July 28. Photo by Sari Roden.
Going to this when I get back to NYC
thehort.org
Field Recordings
May 9 – July 6, 2012
Opening Reception
Wednesday, May 9, 6:00pm to 8:00pm
The Horticultural Society of New York is pleased to present Field Recordings, a multimedia exhibition of works by Saul Becker and Stephen Vitiello. The exhibition explores how both artists collect fragments of the natural world and restage them as altered landscapes presented in multimedia sculptures, photographs, video, and drawings.
Field Recordings centers on several collaborative works, which combine Vitiello’s atmospheric sound compositions with Becker’s electroplated wildflower sculptures. The exhibition also includes Becker’s landscape drawings as well as a series of Polaroids and a Super-8 film by Vitiello. Collectively, their work presents a vision of landscapes that are familiar yet alien, acknowledging our current anxiety regarding
the environment while reveling in the beauty
and wildness of the non-human world.
Listen
Special bonus for MANPodcast.com visitors, subscribers: A second clip of Steve Roden and Stephen Vitiello’s The Spaces Contained in Each (2012), performed live at Houston’s Rothko Chapel on July 28, 2012!
Here’s the backgrounder: The second segment of this week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features artists Steve Roden and Stephen Vitiello discussing The Spaces Contained in Each, their recent improvised collaboration at Houston’s Rothko Chapel. Performed in association with the exhibition “Silence” at The Menil Collection, Roden and Vitiello’s work was inspired by their shared interest in John Cage, and in particular Cage’s 4’33”.
To download this week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast directly to your PC/mobile device, click here. Subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes or RSS. See images of artworks discussed on the program.
Image: Stephen Vitiello (left) and Steve Roden at their soundcheck at The Rothko Chapel, Houston on July 28. Photo by Sari Roden.
