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Emergency Noises

Sound Art and Gender

by Irene Noy (Author)
Monographs XXIV, 312 Pages
Series: German Visual Culture, Volume 4

Summary

Art history traditionally concentrates on the visual. Sound has either been ignored or has been appreciated in a highly selective manner within a different discipline: music. This book is about recent attempts by artists trained in (West) Germany to provoke listening experiences to awaken the senses. Their work is revolutionary in artistic terms and in what it reveals about human relations, especially concerning issues of gender.
The main focus of the book is to explore a gendered reading of the unity between the visual and the aural, a strand most prominently expressed within sound art in the period from the beginning of the 1960s to the 1980s. The book juxtaposes sources that have not been considered in conjunction with each other before and questions sound art’s premise: is it a separate field or a novel way of understanding art? The study also opens up sound art to gender considerations, asking if the genre possesses the capacity to disrupt conventional, gendered role models and facilitate alternative possibilities of self-definition and agency across genders. Emergency Noises brings to light the work of underrepresented female artists and explores new intersections of sound, art and gender.

Table Of Contents

  • Cover
  • Title
  • Copyright
  • About the author(s)/editor(s)
  • About the book
  • This eBook can be cited
  • Contents
  • Figures
  • Preface
  • Acknowledgements
  • Chapter 1: Sound Art or Sound in Art: What Matters?
  • Post-war decades: If you look at art, open your ears
  • Materiality: A core theme
  • Invisible, inaudible: Women artists
  • No (Sound) Art without women: A collage from three decades
  • The unfolding story: The chapters and their sources
  • The relevance of this book: Emergency noises
  • Chapter 2: Sound Art and the Hierarchy of Senses
  • Towards a ‘revival of the senses’: The historiography of Sound Art
  • Sound Art and theory: A loosening of frontiers
  • Arts and the senses: How divisions came about
  • The Romantic aesthetic: Autonomous realms?
  • Sound: Not a monopoly of music
  • Ranked and gendered: A history of the senses
  • Left out of the framework: Technology and the canon
  • Women amidst binaries: Visually objectified, aurally silent
  • Chapter 3: From the Bauhaus to Für Augen und Ohren: Gender and the Institutional Incorporation of the Senses of Sight and Hearing
  • ‘For Eyes and Ears’: The creation of canons
  • Additional takes on seeing and hearing: Regional exhibitions
  • Colour, sound, balance: Gertrud Grunow at the Bauhaus
  • Women’s rights at the Bauhaus and beyond: A history of battles
  • Künstlerinnen International: Not mere ‘women’s art’
  • Producing (art) history: ‘proof of existence’ is not enough
  • Chapter 4: Noise in Painting: Mary Bauermeister’s Early Practice and Collaboration with Karlheinz Stockhausen
  • Artist and composer: Mutual exchanges
  • Visual and aural parameters: A perpetual balance of opposites
  • Bauermeister and Cologne: Contributing to a vibrant artistic hub
  • An empowering force
  • Chapter 5: Unmasking the Masquerade: Aural and Visual Gender Dynamics in the Performance Series Emergency Solos by Christina Kubisch
  • Challenging male hegemony: Freeing the body, freeing meaning
  • Emergency Solos: Exposing the masquerade
  • Stille Nacht
  • Variations on a classical theme I
  • It’s so touchy
  • Weekend
  • Private Piece
  • Break
  • Erotica
  • Untitled (Mumie)
  • Performance art as a medium: Multiplied subjectivities
  • Kubisch’s achievement: Challenging tacit conventions
  • Chapter 6: Playful Imagination: A Comparative Study of Gerda Nettesheim’s and Monika von Wedel’s Sound Objects
  • Variations on sound objects: Two distinct approaches from Cologne and its region
  • Gerda Nettesheim: Musical toys and play
  • Monika von Wedel: Expanding sculpture via actual and imagined sound
  • Asserting the ‘I’
  • Chapter 7: Listen to His Master’s Voice: Authoritative Acousmatic Voices in an Audio Piece by Hildegard Westerkamp
  • Hildegard Westerkamp: Ecological thinking and gender consciousness
  • Voices of authority and issues of visibility
  • His Master’s Voice: The materiality of law
  • ‘Powerful listening’: Awareness of sonic environments and their visual sources
  • Hildegard Westerkamp and Hannah Höch: Polyvocal montages from different times and in diverse media
  • The significance of His Master’s Voice: A summary
  • Chapter 8: Epilogue: Signifying Matter
  • The five selected practitioners: A review
  • Extending imagination: Alternative media and sensorial perception
  • Gender issues: Revisiting meaning and matter
  • Appendices
  • Appendix 1
  • Appendix 2
  • Appendix 3
  • Bibliography
  • Archives
  • Books, articles, exhibition catalogues, digital sources
  • Index
  • Series index

| ix →

Figures

Chapter 3

Figure 1 View of the exhibition Für Augen und Ohren: Von der Spieluhr zum akustischen Environment. Objekte Installationen Performances (‘For Eyes and Ears: From the Music Box to the Acoustic Environment. Objects Installations Performances’), at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin, 1980. In the foreground: artworks by Bernd and François Baschet © Hilde Zenker.

Figure 2 John Cage, 33 1/3, 1969. View of the work as displayed at the exhibition Sehen um zu hören: Objekte & Konzerte zur visuellen Musik der 60er Jahre (‘Seeing in order to Hear: Objects and Concerts of Visual Music in the 1960s’), at Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (1975) © Walter Klein.

Figure 3 Stephan von Huene with Tap Dancer (1967). Wood, metal, and mechanical components. 120 × 90 × 75 cm. Collection of Nancy Reddin Kienholz. Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (1975) © Dr Petra Kipphoff von Huene.

Figure 4 Mauricio Kagel, Tactil für drei Spieler (‘Tactile for Three Players’), 1970. Guitar, harmonica and piano. View of the work as displayed at the exhibition Sehen um zu hören: Objekte & Konzerte zur visuellen Musik der 60er Jahre (‘Seeing in order to Hear: Objects and Concerts of Visual Music in the 1960s’), Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (1975) © Walter Klein. ← ix | x →

Figure 5 Joe Jones, Drum Set, 1974. Operated by an electric motor. Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (1975) © Walter Klein.

Figure 6 Evening programme of the exhibition Sehen um zu hören: Objekte & Konzerte zur visuellen Musik der 60er Jahre (‘Seeing in order to Hear: Objects and Concerts of Visual Music in the 1960s’), 1975 © Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf.

Figure 7 Charlotte Moorman performing Nam June Paik’s TV Bra for Living Sculpture in Cologne in 1970. Composed of two miniature cathode ray tube televisions. Photograph: Werner Krüger. Source: Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections, Northwestern University Libraries.

Figure 8 Cover of the exhibition catalogue Sehen um zu hören: Objekte & Konzerte zur visuellen Musik der 60er Jahre (‘Seeing in order to Hear: Objects and Concerts of Visual Music in the 1960s’), at the Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, 1975.

Figure 9 Cover of the exhibition catalogue Für Augen und Ohren: Von der Spieluhr zum akustischen Environment. Objekte Installationen Performances (‘For Eyes and Ears: From the Music Box to the Acoustic Environment. Objects Installations Performances’), at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin, 1980. Photo: Knud Peter Petersen.

Figure 10 View of the exhibition Sehen und Hören: Design und Kommunikation (‘Seeing and Hearing: Design and Communication’), at the Kunsthalle of the Kunstgewerbemuseum Cologne, 1974 © 1974 Rheini-sches Bildarchiv.

Figure 11 View of the exhibition Sehen und Hören: Design und Kommunikation (‘Seeing and Hearing: Design and Communication’), at the Kunsthalle of the Kunstgewerbemuseum Cologne, 1974 © 1974 Rheini-sches Bildarchiv. ← x | xi →

Figure 12 Gertrud Grunow in 1940. Image from the Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin. Photographer unknown.

Figure 13 Gertrud Grunow, black-and-white circular diagram as it appeared in Staatliches Bauhaus Weimar 1919–1923 (State-Funded Bauhaus in Weimar 1919–1923), 1923.

Figure 14 Gertrud Grunow, black-and-white square diagram as it appeared in Staatliches Bauhaus Weimar 1919–1923 (State-Funded Bauhaus in Weimar 1919–1923), 1923.

Figure 15 Overview of the pedagogical structure at the Bauhaus, as it appeared in Staatliches Bauhaus Weimar 1919–1923 (State-Funded Bauhaus in Weimar 1919–1923), 1923.

Figure 16 Three images of one of Gertrud Grunow’s students exemplify the kind of practices they performed during Grunow’s classes at the Bauhaus. Image from the Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin. Photographer unknown.

Figure 17 Press release of the exhibition Künstlerinnen International 1877–1977 (‘International Female Artists 1877–1977’), at the Schloss Charlottenburg in Berlin, 1977.

Figure 18 Marina Abramović, Freeing the Body performance (Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, 1975), Freeing the Memory performance (Galerie Dacić, Tübingen, Germany, 1975), Freeing the Voice performance (Student Cultural Center, Belgrade, 1975) © Marina Abramović, courtesy of Marina Abramović Archives.

Figure 19 Christina Kubisch, It’s so touchy, 1974. Performer, a metal Western concert flute (side-blown) and metal thimbles. Part of the performance series Emergency Solos. Courtesy of the artist.

Figure 20 Georgia O’Keeffe, Blue and Green Music, 1919. Oil on canvas, 58.4 cm × 48.3 cm © Collection of The Art Institute of Chicago.

Figure 21 Mary Bauermeister, Sandhalme (‘Sand Stalks’), 1962. Sand, Wood, Honeycomb, Straw, 130 × 190 × 30 cm © Courtesy of the artist and 401contemporary, Berlin. ← xi | xii →

Chapter 4

Figure 22 Mary Bauermeister, Malerische Konzeptionen (‘Conceptions of Painting’, detail), 1961. The table was published together with the exhibition catalogue Karlheinz Stockhausen & Mary Bauermeister, at Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1962. Courtesy of the artist.

Figure 23 Mary Bauermeister, Übergänge (‘Transitions’), 1959. Casein on canvas, 50 × 50 cm. 401contemporary, Berlin. Photograph: Johann Camut, courtesy of the Frauenmuseum Bonn.

Figure 24 Wassily Kandinsky, Point and Line to Plane (New York: Dover Publications, 1979), 51–2.

Figure 25 Mary Bauermeister, Kontra Punkte (‘Counter Points’, detail), 1961. Casein and tempera on canvas, 100 × 100 cm. Stockhausen Foundation. Photograph: courtesy of Mary Bauermeister.

Figure 26 Mary Bauermeister, Kreise balanciert (‘Balanced Circles’), 1962. Sand on canvas, 140 × 140 cm. Karlheinz Stock-hausen Collection.

Figure 27 Mary Bauermeister, Rotfenster (‘Red Window’), 1961. Casein tempera, phosphorous colour, plastic mass, straw on canvas, 101 × 101 cm. Courtesy of the artist and 401contemporary, Berlin.

Figure 28 Mary Bauermeister, Rechts draußen (‘Right Outside’), 1962. Indian ink, graphite, plastic mass on canvas, 138 × 138 cm. Courtesy of the artist and 401contemporary, Berlin.

Figure 29 Mary Bauermeister, Rotfenster (‘Red Window’, detail), 1961. Casein tempera, phosphorous colour, plastic mass, straw on canvas, 101 × 101 cm. Photographs: Johann Camut, courtesy of the artist.

Figure 30 Mary Bauermeister, Strohhalmbild (‘Straw Image’), 1961. Tempera and straw on wood, 50 × 50 cm. Stedelijk ← xii | xiii → Museum, Amsterdam. Photograph: Johann Camut, courtesy of the Frauenmuseum Bonn.

Figure 31 Front and rear cover of the exhibition catalogue Karlheinz Stockhausen & Mary Bauermeister, at the Stedelijk Museum, 1962.

Figure 32 Inside cover of the exhibition catalogue Karlheinz Stockhausen & Mary Bauermeister, at the Stedelijk Museum, 1962.

Figure 33 Mary Bauermeister, Ohne Titel (‘Untitled’), 1957. Oil, Indian ink and wood on canvas, 100 × 80 cm. In artist’s possession. Photograph: Irene Noy, courtesy of the artist.

Figure 34 Mary Bauermeister, Malberg (‘Painted Hill’), 1961 © Karlheinz Stockhausen Foundation.

Figure 35 Mary Bauermeister, Rotes Wabenbild (‘Red Honeycomb’), 1959/60. Plastic mass, casein and tempera, 40 × 40 cm. Dorothea Eimert, Düren. Photograph: Matthew Ward, courtesy of Lost City Arts, New York.

Figure 36 Mary Bauermeister, Rotes Wabenbild (‘Red Honeycomb’, detail), 1959/60. Plastic mass, casein and tempera, 40 × 40 cm. Dorothea Eimert, Düren. Photograph: Matthew Ward, courtesy of Lost City Arts, New York.

Figure 37 Bauermeister Studio in Lintgasse 28, Cologne, 1960, from left: D. Tudor, C. Cardew, B. Patterson, Chr. Wolff, J. Cage, L. v. Knobelsdorf. Photograph: Klaus Barisch, courtesy of Klaus Barisch.

Chapter 5

Figure 38 Christina Kubisch, A History of Soundcards, 1978. A member of the audience squeezing one of the postcards that produced a squeaking noise. Archive Christina Kubisch. ← xiii | xiv →

Figure 39 Christina Kubisch, A History of Soundcards, 1978. Performer, 100 sounding postcards, slide projector and play recorder. Archive Christina Kubisch.

Figure 40 Christina Kubisch, A History of Soundcards, 1978. Performer, 100 sounding postcards, slide projector and play recorder. Archive Christina Kubisch.

Figure 41 Christina Kubisch, Vibrations, 1975. For String Quartet (two violins, cello and bass). Archive Christina Kubisch.

Figure 42 Christina Kubisch, Moving Music, 1980. A Western concert flute (side-blown) and a vibrator. Courtesy of Akademie der Künste.

Figure 43 Deutscher Musikrat, Musik in Deutschland 1950–2000: Instrumentales Laboratorium. Includes compositions by Dieter Schnebel, Christina Kubisch, Manos Tsangaris, Hans-Karsten Raecke, Sven-Åke Johansson, Paul Fuchs/Hariolf Schlichtig, Erwin Stache, Dodo Schielein and Andreas Oldörp. RCA Red Seal/BMG, 2004. Cover image depicts Christina Kubisch, It’s so touchy (part of the Emergency Solos performance series), 1974.

Figure 44 Christina Kubisch, Stille Nacht (‘Silent Night’), 1974. Half-naked performer, a Western concert flute (side-blown) and fur mittens. Courtesy of Akademie der Künste.

Figure 45 Christina Kubisch, Stille Nacht (‘Silent Night’), 1974. Performer, a Western concert flute (side-blown) and fur mittens. Archive Christina Kubisch.

Figure 46 Christina Kubisch, Variations on a classical theme I, 1974. Performer, a Western concert flute (side-blown) and a plastic sausage. Archive Christina Kubisch.

Figure 47 Christina Kubisch, It’s so touchy, 1974. Performer, a Western concert flute (side-blown) and metal thimbles.

Figure 48 Christina Kubisch, Weekend, 1974. Performer, part of a Western concert flute (side-blown) and a gas mask. Archive Christina Kubisch. ← xiv | xv →

Figure 49 Christina Kubisch, Private Piece, 1974. Performer and part of a Western concert flute. Archive Christina Kubisch.

Figure 50 Christina Kubisch, Break, 1974. Performer, a Western concert flute (side-blown), boxing gloves and a bell. Archive Christina Kubisch.

Figure 51 Christina Kubisch, Erotica, 1974. Performer, part of a Western concert flute and a condom. Archive Christina Kubisch.

Figure 52 Christina Kubisch, Erotica, 1974. Performer, part of a Western concert flute and a condom. Archive Christina Kubisch.

Details

Pages
XXIV, 312
ISBN (PDF)
9781787078543
ISBN (ePUB)
9781787078550
ISBN (MOBI)
9781787078567
ISBN (Hardcover)
9783034319874
DOI
10.3726/b11569
Language
English
Publication date
2017 (August)
Keywords
sound art gender studies art and the senses German culture twentieth-century art
Published
Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Wien, 2017. XXIV, 312 pp., 5 coloured ill., 73 b/w ill.

Biographical notes

Irene Noy (Author)

Irene Noy is an art historian and a curator exploring twentieth-century aural and visual culture in Germany and Britain, particularly in relation to gender and the senses. She holds a PhD from The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, where she also completed a postdoctoral fellowship. Previously, she received her education from the University of Edinburgh, University of Bonn and University of British Columbia.

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