Exhibition and Event

The Graphics,
Music,
 and Writings
of

Herbert Brün

 

 

Exhibition:
September 10 - October 16, 2004
Opening: Friday, September 10, 6 - 9 P.M.

Concert:
Friday, September 17, 8:00 P.M.
Keith Moore, music curator
produced in conjunction with the ThreeTwo Festival,
Keith Moore, Taimur Sullivan and Elizabeth Adams, directors

Symposium:
Saturday, September 18, 1:30 - 9:30 P.M.
Michael Kowalski, symposium curator
 

Photo credit: Susan Barron

Herbert Brün
Herbert Brün was born in Berlin in 1918 and died in Urbana, Illinois in 2000. From 1936 to 1948 he lived in Palestine, where he studied composition with Stefan Wolpe, Eli Friedman, and Frank Pelleg.  From 1955 to 1961 he pursued research in electro-acoustic composition in Paris, Cologne, and Munich.  In 1962 Brün was invited by computer-music pioneer Lejaren Hiller to join the faculty of the University of Illinois, where he continued his work in electronic music and began research on the use of computers in composition, both musical and visual.  In addition to a large body of music for traditional instruments, tape and instruments, tape alone, and computer-generated graphics for diverse interpreters, Brün produced several volumes of essays and aphorisms dealing with the social and political significance of composition and language.  When Music Resists Meaning, a collection of his major writings edited by Arun Chandra, was published by Wesleyan University Press in 2004.

Exhibition
A selection of over thirty of Brün's pioneering computer-generated drawings from the 1960's through the 1990's will be on exhibit at the gallery, including several of the most important graphics intended for use as musical scores. This marks the first major exhibition of Brün graphics in New York City.

Concert
On Friday, September 17, a concert performance of several of Brün's pioneering graphic musical scores will be presented at the gallery, featuring performances by virtuoso percussionist Allen Otte and members of the New York-based ThreeTwo Festival, directed by Keith Moore, Taimur Sullivan, and Elizabeth Adams.  The entire concert is under the music direction of Keith Moore.

Symposium
On Saturday, September 18, the gallery will host an eight-hour symposium devoted to Brün's drawings, music, political philosophy, and his use of computers in composition.  The symposium will focus on introducing New York artists, musicians, critics, and computer-art experimenters to the full spectrum of Brün's work, including his rich body of writings on music, performance, politics, and language.  A series of four panel discussions will alternate with breaks during which recordings will be played of several larger musical works which could not be included in the previous evening's concert.

The philosophical, aesthetic, and technical problems posed by Brün's work still have a remarkable resonance for any artist for whom the notions "experiment", "explore", "stipulate", "communicate", and "compose" retain their savor.  The ultimate goal of the exhibition, concert, and seminar is to examine the links between problems posed by this body of work and the concerns of contemporary composers of all manner of texts.


 

Agenda

Friday, September 17

8:00 P.M. Concert
produced in conjuntion with the ThreeTwo Festival

Touch and Go
Mutatis Mutandis
Floating Hierarchies
Quartets and Trio


 


Allen Otte, percussion
Taimur Sullivan, saxophone
Liubomir Borissov, electronics
Maja Cerar, violin

assisted by members of the
ThreeTwo Festival and
Open Aspects Ensemble



 


Saturday, September 18

1:30 P.M. Panel One

Herbert Brün's graphics in the history of 20th century drawing

Guest speaker:
Lenore Metrick-Chen
"Between Two: Herbert Brün Drawings"


3:00 P.M. Panel Two

Herbert Brün as a political philosopher

Guest speaker:
Arun Chandra
"If Then What Now? : Ethics and 'The Committee of Criteria' "


4:30 P.M. Roundtable

Brün in Context

Part I       Wittgenstein and Brün on Language
Part II      Mikhail Bakhtin versus Brün on Communication
Part III     Clement Greenberg versus Brün on Penmanship Exercises
Part IV    Schoenberg and Brün on Implausible Sentiments
Part V    Pierre Bourdieu versus Brün on the Desirability of Distinctions


7:00 P.M. Panel Three

Brün's music: the challenge of counter-intuitive composition

Guest speaker:
Allen Otte
"At Loose Ends with Anticommunication"


8:30 P.M. Panel Four
Roles and rationales for computers in the world of art and music

Guest speaker:
Duane Palyka
"Form and Meaning in Brün's Lyrical Graphics"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Herbert Brün and Theodor Adorno

 

Symposium participants

Computer artist and physicist Liubomir Borissov is a Vilar Fellow in the Performing Arts at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU.

Arun Chandra is a composer and Music Director of the Olympia Chamber Orchestra. He teaches at The Evergreen State College and is the editor of the recently published collection of Brün's writings, When Music Resists Meaning (Wesleyan).

Composer Mark Enslin is a founding member along with Herbert Brün of the Performers' Workshop Ensemble and the School for Designing a Society.

Lydia Goehr is a professor in the philosophy department at Columbia University. She is the author of The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An Essay in the Philosophy of Music (Oxford: Clarendon), and The Quest for Voice: Music, Politics, and the Limits of Philosophy (Oxford and California).

Charlotta Kotik has been chair of the department of Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum since l992. She curated the international touring retrospective of the work of Louise Bourgeois and served as the American commissioner for the 1993 Venice Biennale. Her work for the Brooklyn Museum has included the acclaimed series of LobbyProjects, and, most recently, Open House: Working in Brooklyn, a large group exhibition of artists working in the borough.

Composer Michael Kowalski produced
a series of major computer-assisted compositions in the 1970's (Gringo Blaster : Einstein Records EIN008).  His third chamber opera, The Rise and Fall of the First World, will begin previews in 2004.

Lenore Metrick-Chen's writings have appeared most recently in Sculpture and Public Arts Review. She is completing her dissertation at the University of Chicago for a joint Ph.D. in the Committee on Social Thought and the Department of Art History. She is currently the Docent Education Director at the Des Moines Art Center in Des Moines, Iowa.

Katherine Jánszky Michaelsen is a professor of art history at the Fashion Institute of Technology.  She is the author of many articles and catalogue essays, and has been a guest curator at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., the Kunstverein, Düsseldorf, and the Neuberger Museum in Purchase, NY.

Composer Keith Moore is a director of the new music organization ThreeTwo.  He has received commissions from the Musikfabrik NRW (Düsseldorf), AktivMusik (Essen), EarMarks Festival (Duisburg), the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the Fondation Royaumont (France), and IGNM (Switzerland).

Percussionist and composer Allen Otte is professor of percussion at the University of Cincinnati.  He founded the Percussion Group Cincinnati in 1979, with which he maintains an intensive international touring schedule.

Duane Palyka's computer artwork has been shown at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, the Brooklyn Museum, the Corcoran Gallery, and the Smithsonian.  He is a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology School of Film and Animation.

Composer Susan Parenti studied composition with Herbert Brün and is a founding member along with Brün of the Performers' Workshop Ensemble and the School for Designing a Society.

Composer, performer, and theorist Larry Polansky teaches in the graduate program in computer music at Dartmouth College and is the co-founder and co-director of Frog Peak Music.


Registration


REGISTRATION AT THE DOOR:
Single event (concert, panel discussion):
$ 8.00
Single event -- student, low-income:
$ 5.00
Symposium day-pass (all four panels):
$25.00
Day-pass -- student, low-income:
$15.00


PLEASE NOTE:
Attendance at any event is limited to 50.
Advance registration will be limited to 40.
Those wishing to attend the entire symposium should register early in order to guarantee a seat at all events.

EARLY REGISTRATION BY MAIL
(before Sept. 10):

CLICK HERE FOR FORM TO PRINT AND MAIL

(tax deductible)
$25.00 symposium day-pass (four panels)
$30.00 concert and symposium day-pass

Optional extras (not deductible)
$20.00 symposium notes, to include copies of the four papers and edited transcripts of the four panel discussions.  These will be shipped approximately Jan. 1, 2005.

$40.00 Three-course prix fixe dinner at
restaurant 360 following the symposium. 360, located directly across the street from the gallery, is one of Brooklyn's premiere French restaurants. Includes gratuity and taxes.  Wine not included.

CONTACT US FOR MORE INFORMATION



Kentler International Drawing Space
Brün Symposium
353 Van Brunt Street
Brooklyn, New York 11231-1245