After a successful run at MAINSITE Contemporary Art that ushered in the return of in-person 2nd Friday Norman Art Walks, The Left Hand of Liminality comes to a close on Saturday, July 10, but not without one final hurrah!
Musician J Cruise Berry created Sculpture Music, an original musical work of art inspired by the collaborative installation “At What Point? A Love Song Duet” from artists Gabriel Friedman and Denise Duong. The composition will be performed twice on Saturday, July 10, starting at 6 and 8 p.m. Q&As will follow each performance. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. Admission is free, and light refreshments will be on hand.
The performances will take place at MAINSITE Contemporary Art, 122 E. Main, Norman.
Learn more about Sculpture Music below:
Ensemble - piano, horn, sculpture
Title - Sculpture Music
Duration - 12 minutes
Written - June 2021
Commissioned by - Gabriel Friedman & Denise Duong for Left Hand of Liminality for MAINSITE Contemporary Art with support from Norman Arts Council
Premiere - July 10, 2021
In Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, there is this idea, this spirit of reciprocity, of giving back what has been given to us. Of being grateful. A cycle.
The old being made new.
There are patterns in music. Indefatigable. Expected and some not bargained for.
The best can comfort and surprise us in frightening and maternal ways. Performers listen, a natively empathetic act, and respond to one another and give and receive in a constant flow state in the union of performance. It is audible reciprocity in real time.
My friendship with artists, Gabriel Friedman and Denise Duong, is one not considered lightly and one I hope stands for as long as we do. The night their show opened, Gabe came to me and showed me his work, At What Point? A Love Song Duet, was not only sculpture but instrument. And we ran with it. The next day we began exploring the sonic possibilities of his giant instrument made of wood and metal. Learning the story of an artwork from the mouth of the artist is a deeply thrilling moment for another artist. At it’s heart, the work is ekphrasitic, a work of art created by inspiration from another work of art so that the new work calls to mind the original in such a way that one can see the work without having seen it.
This work is, “music from the fingers” and shot from the hip. Improvised. Extemporized. And tediously rehearsed. It’s scored for piano, horn, and incredibly large wood sculpture of a hand and metal bird. The work’s architecture behaves in offensively broad strokes of gesture and spiraling modulations. Chords rub against one another in passive major second suspensions. There are moments of flight, anxiously repetitive gestures descending downward in small model scales that call to mind a mother bird tending her little ones from the tippy top of an ancient sycamore.
But it’s as much about the audience, the inhabited space between performer and listener, as it is about the musicians and the music. Music is a communal art and we gather and drank from the same cup (figuratively, of course!) to be part of a performance. Music through headphones is not the same. As the composer of the work and one of the evening’s performers I cannot wait to share this moment with you all.
-J Cruise Berry