Cultural Conversations

hMa marks the passing of a generation: Merce CunninghamCultural Conversations with hanrahanMeyers architects

Merce Cunningham (far right) rehearses with his dance group. September 1, 1957. Photo Charles Rotkin.

Merce Cunningham died last Sunday at the age of 90.  The following is an excerpt from an interview with npr's Renee Montagne:

INSKEEP: Merce Cunningham began his career in the 1930s dancing with Martha Graham's company. Before long, he broke away to create his own dance company and a new kind of dance with his personal and professional partner, composer John Cage. The two experimented with the art form, even letting chance dictate the dancer's steps.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM: Well, if you had three movements, a run, a jump, and a fall, you would think, well, you run, you jump up, and then you fall. But what if you toss a coin and it comes up you have to do the fall first and then the jump, and then the run? It breaks down what anybody has, and dancers in particular have muscular memories of how things should go. But instead of saying that's impossible, you try it out.

RENEE MONTAGNE: Well, I'm going to quote you something that you've said that I hope is an accurate quote, but here it goes. I think of dance as being movement, any kind of movement.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM: Yes.

MONTAGNE: And that it is as accurate and impermanent as breathing.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM: Yes, I think it is.

MONTAGNE: So does that mean that you will be dancing, in effect, right to that last breath?

Mr. CUNNINGHAM: Well, probably.

MONTAGNE: As long as you live, you'll be dancing.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM: Yes, or I - or I can call it dancing, even if nobody else does.

WERTHEIMER: Merce Cunningham, a dancer to his last breath.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM: And go, and one.

You may listen to the interview on npr's website.  Video's of Cunningham may be found here.   Merce Cunningham's approach to choreography has had a huge effect on hMa's approach to architecture.  More information can be found on hMa's blog entitled A Practice in the Arts.

Art on Air Radio Interview with Victoria MeyersCultural Conversations with hanrahanMeyers architects

Late next month, Victoria Meyers will be featured in an interview for Art on Air on Art International Radio (AIR) (formerly WPS1 Radio).  Check back for details.

A little background on AIR from their website www.artonair.org:

AIR, Art International Radio is an Internet radio station and free online audio archive for cultural programming. AIR’s Performance Gallery hosts ten major performances annually as well as installations, cultural symposia, and workshops. The studio rooms provide production and development facilities for audio art and music, radio theatre, spoken word projects, interdisciplinary works and new media innovation.

Mud Book by John Cage and Lois LongCultural Conversations with hanrahanMeyers architects

hMa recommends this creative, light-hearted and beautifully illustrated book with words by John Cage and illustrations by Lois Long.  Below are a few selected pages:

cover of Mud Book : How to Make Pies and Cakes by John Cage and Lois Long

View the book on Amazon.com

Pina BauschCultural Conversations with hanrahanMeyers architects

Dancers rehearsing "The Rite of Spring" in July 2007 prior to the opening of the Avignon Festival.

Daniel Wakin of the New York Times writes, "The choreographer Pina Bausch was an intensely serious exponent of the neo-expressionist form of German dance known as Tanztheater. She was known for works showing men and women engaged in endless, often violent, power struggles. She died June 30, 2009, at 68 in Wuppertal, Germany."  Read more on Bausch here.

Alister Macaulay on "Bamboo Blues" and Pina Bausch:
"Perhaps the most interesting dichotomy lies between its presentation of the intensely social self (in which her characters’ artful awareness of an audience often makes them become bizarre or grotesque) and its images of the less affected but often more driven inner person."

DJ Olive: Illbeant SoundCultural Conversations with hanrahanMeyers architects

DJ Olive the Audio Janitor (Gregor Asch) applies his skills as a DJ and turntablist to create atmospheric multimedia events that broaden conventional definitions of listening to music. Delivering both danceable bass-heavy sets and quieter, ambient soundscapes to large audiences in clubs, warehouses, and music festivals, Olive’s musical aesthetic features layered and looped urban noises reflecting the chaotic character of his Brooklyn, New York, home base. He uses computers and turntables to appropriate and combine incongruous audio clips—ranging from street sounds to previously recorded world music, drum ‘n’ bass, hip-hop, and dub—into songs that contain trancelike, melodic, groovy logics.

- Above bio excerpted from www.whitney.org (DJ Olive was featured in the 2008 Biennial)

DJ Olive (along with DJ Spooky) is also recognized for coining the term "Illbeant" to describe a new style of music being made in Brooklyn in the early to mid 90's.   Read more about Illbeant here.  Dj Olive recently released a new album titled Triage, the third installment in a series of albums he calls 'sleeping pills,' created as an ode/aid to sleepnessness.  Read a review of the album here.

David TeepleCultural Conversations with hanrahanMeyers architects

David Teeple, Photo from the Connecticut River Sequence, part of the 2001 exhibition “Living with the River” for the The Connecticut River Watershed Council, Holyoke, MA

David Teeple, In Reflection, solo exhibition at The Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, MA

David Teeple is an artist and has collaborated with hMa on several projects.  David made a custom display shelf for hMa as part of our 2007 office renovation.  You can see the shelf here (in pictures 3 and 4 from top).

Mary Temple : Painted LightCultural Conversations with hanrahanMeyers architects

Mary Temple, Extended Afternoon Phase 3, installation at the Aldrich Museum, 2006

Mary Temple is an artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, NYC, and who makes work that incorporates its architectural space.  The Extended Afternoon series of works by Temple address the relationship between Architecture and Light, which is the primary theme addressed in Victoria Meyers' book, Designing with Light, 2006.

Read more about Mary Temple on mixedgreens.com.

Mary Temple, Extended Afternoon Phase 2, installation at the Aldrich Museum, 2006

AVA Lectures by Michael J. SchumacherCultural Conversations with hanrahanMeyers architects

CULTURAL CONVERSATIONS RECOMMENDS:

AVA LECTURES . 01

Three lectures on SOUND by Michael J. Schumacher of Diapason

July 12, 2009 / 5-6 pm

Sound for Artists : Historical and technical information with examples.

July 19, 2009 / 5-6 pm

Diapason Gallery : A talk about New York's only venue devoted exclusively to sound art.

July 26, 2009 / 5-6 pm

Living Room Pieces : An approach to selling sound art.

AVA

audiovisualarts.org

34 East 1st Street (btw 1st and 2nd Avenue), NYC

Subway : F/V train to 2nd Avenue / 6 train to Bleecker

Rosemarie FioreCultural Conversations with hanrahanMeyers architects

Good-Time Mix Machine: Scrambler Drawings, 2004, 1964 Eli Bridge Scrambler ride, generator, compressor, bucket, acrylic paint on vinyl, video camera , 60 ft x 60 ft

Fireworks Drawing, 2005, lit firework residue, collage on paper, 50 in x 76 in

Firework Drawing #5, 2005, lit firework residue, collage on paper, 40 in x 60 in

The following excerpt on Rosemarie Fiore is from Jonathan Stuhlman's "When Choice Meets Chance":

“Her work often engages art historical precedents, but with tongue planted firmly in cheek.  Paintings that she creates with a waffle maker poke fun at the austerity of the minimalist grid; her “drip” canvases, like Pollock’s, are created on a horizontal plane, but by a whirling Scrambler ride rather than a nimble human; and her pinball series might be read as a playful reference to Sol LeWitt; take a given set of conditions, tweak the variables slightly, and execute.”

Architecture and NumbersCultural Conversations with hanrahanMeyers architects

Infinity Chapel: hyper-cube diagram 

 Curve Wall of the Infinity Chapel, June 2009

Architecture is the inscription of the body and mind in space through numbers.  These inscriptions are organized through geometry:  points, lines and planes, and, in higher calculus, curves and surfaces.

Gothic Cathedrals in Europe were designed and laid out by masons inscribing ‘sacred geometries’ on the ground plane. These ‘sacred geometries’ were literally constructed, in plan, section, and in three-dimensional space.

For the Infinity Chapel design, hMa used a similar approach, updated.  We looked to the diagram of 21st century ‘hyper-cube’ forms to create a formal solution for a contemporary, 21st century space for sacred contemplation.