Please silence your cell phones, iPods, corduroy pants, and crinoline dresses.

BRIAN MILLER from the Seattle Weekly tunes into + Room – Room here at the Henry.

The trick to appreciate this collaboration between Yann Novak and Jamie Drouin is to walk back and forth between the two rooms (which consist of white walls, benches, and speakers) and listen for the difference. The two visiting artists built their sonic dialectic from the original gallery “room tones,” originally recording the buzz and thrum and hiss of the creaky old ducts when the Henry was completely silent and empty. (“We let the AC have its own individual voice,” Novak drolly said during a recent walk-through.) Then they added digital processing and voilà—one room is positive, the other negative.

It’s like the world’s slowest DJ battle, with the turntables running at 2 rpm.

+ROOM-ROOM Performance last Friday

Photo by Brian Murphy

Thank you to all who attended the Yann Novak + Jamie Drouin performance at the Henry last Friday! (Thanks for the photos, Brian!) Over a hundred people gathered to celebrate the opening of +ROOM-ROOM and William Kentridge, both exhibitions now on view at the Henry.

If you missed the performance, check out the +ROOM-ROOM exhibition and audio CD (for sale at the Henry Admissions Desk, samples available at our website soon!) Stay tuned for future blog posts on +ROOM-ROOM and also a look back at the Henry’s recent history of sound art exhibitions.

Thanks Yann + Jamie for performing, nice to have you back in the Auditorium for the third time! Can’t wait for your next collaboration!

Your weekend art events hit parade

Two events this evening:

Yann Novak and Jamie Drouin: Performance
Friday, February 6, 2009, 6:30 – 8:00 PM
Henry Members FREE | $5 General Admission
Tickets available at the Henry admission desk.

This performance in conjunction with the exhibition +ROOM-ROOM will be a conversation in sound between Yann Novak and Jamie Drouin. Like the exhibition, this presentation will showcase their distinct approaches to utilizing the ambient recordings they create and manipulate. (Facebook it.)

TIVON RICE
7:30
Between Here and a Kind of Fleshlessness
911 Seattle Media Arts Gallery
9th & Harrison, South Lake Union
Seattle, WA (Facebook it.)

New exhibitions to see here at the Henry:

William Kentridge. Medicine Chest. 1999. Charcoal on paper Courtesy of the artist.

and

+ROOM-ROOM a pair of sound installations for two adjacent galleries at the Henry. Artists Yann Novak and Jamie Drouin will each individually explore how the perception of these familiar places is transformed by sound.

Plus, brand new art to see, all over town!

Claudia X Valdes. The Trinity Series, 2006 – ongoing. (At Lawrimore Project) Click the picture for more info!

We were alone then and I was singing this song for you Joey Veltkamp and Gretchen Bennett. At Fancy - February 5–March 12, 2009

At Davidson Galleries – 313 Occidental Ave S. Ben Beres. Opening, 2008. Etching, relief roll. Edition of 30. 6 inches diameter

Lead Pencil Studio. Retail Commerical. 411 Union - Rainier Sqaure Shopping center.Open Fridays/Saturdays 1-6pm Feb. 6th - March 14th, 2009

+ROOM-ROOM | Novak + Drouin | This Friday!

Yann Novak + Jamie Drouin, Henry Art Gallery Visiting Artists, return to the Henry Auditorium this Friday! Get your tickets now!

Yann Novak + Jamie Drouin Performance

Friday, February 6 | 6:30 PM

Henry Members FREE | $5 General

Tickets available at the Henry Admissions Desk now! Seating is limited!

+ROOM-ROOM is a pair of sound installations for two adjacent galleries at the Henry. Novak and Drouin will each individually explore how the perception of these familiar places is transformed by sound. Through contrasting sensory experiences, the installations create an experiential divide between the two virtually identical rooms and restructure notions of architectural solidity and singularity in favor of more flexible, intuitive perceptions. The aural compositions, based on actual ambient noises recorded in the galleries, turn attention onto the spaces themselves and encourage us to rethink the ways in which we process physical location, and create assumptions about our surroundings. In collaboration with the artists, the Henry will produce a CD of stereo versions of the works.

The performance in conjunction with the exhibition +ROOM-ROOM will be a conversation in sound between Yann Novak and Jamie Drouin. Like the exhibition, this presentation will showcase their distinct approaches to utilizing the ambient recordings they create and manipulate.

From yannnovak.com:

The two artists first met on a panel discussion hosted by Seattle’s 2006 Decibel Festival at the Henry Art Gallery, and both immediately recognized a connection between their two bodies of soundwork; using altered field recordings and sharing a mutual interest in exploring the ability of sound to alter the atmosphere of spaces we inhabit—physically and emotionally.

Two months later, the two artists met once again at the Henry Art Gallery to perform Auditorium, which uses the performance space itself as a sonic point of departure. Recordings made by Novak of the empty space were amplified and layered to create a singular, modulating drone which enhanced the particular ‘fingerprint’ of the space. Drouin’s approach was to define the space with a more scalpel-like hand, inserting sonic pings and rhythms which called attention to the depth and scale of the auditorium, and to interject more textural sounds which would occassionally push the listeners attention outside of the building, reminding them of the thin membrane between the inside/outside worlds.

Join us for Friday’s performance and preview Henry exhibitions +ROOM-ROOM and William Kentridge. Two awesome visiting artists, one night only performance at the Henry!

Interview with William Kentridge

His exhibition here at the Henry opens this weekend, preview it Friday after the +ROOM-ROOM performance!

Youtubin’ Drouin

Check out this YouTube and the Jamie Drouin (+ROOM-ROOM, Henry exhibiting artist) YouTube Channel, where you can watch a couple of his works as well as his YouTube favorites. Also, visit his website.

Tickets available on Friday at the Henry Admissions Desk for Yann Novak + Jamie Drouin’s Visiting Artist Performance at the Henry on Feb 6.

Upcoming Henry Exhibitions:+ROOM-ROOM and William Kentridge

Medicine Chest. 1999. Charcoal on paper. Courtesy of the artist.

On February 7, the Henry Art Gallery will open two fantastic exhibitions in the North Galleries. The Henry is proud to present the exhibition William Kentridge, an array of the South African artist’s work in visual art, including three of his celebrated films, as well as drawings, prints, sculpture, a performance work i am not me, the horse is not mine (on March 9), and a selection of recent stereoscopic images he produced as photogravures in conjunction with Pacific Operaworks, Seattle’s new chamber opera company, premiere of Kentridge’s staging of the Monteverdi opera, The Return of Ulysses for the West Coast at the Moore Theater in March and the exhibition +ROOM-ROOM, a pair of new sound works by Yann Novak (Los Angeles) and Jamie Drouin (Victoria, BC) with a performance by the artists on February 6.

South African artist William Kentridge has garnered international fame and admiration for performance, sculpture, drawings, and work in many other media, but his most indelible contribution is in animated film. Kentridge makes large-scale charcoal drawings that he erases and redraws continually, adding new elements or transforming one subject into a very different other, filming each subtle shift to animate them, literally giving movement, meaning, and life to the images he creates.

Kentridge’s interest in character and seriality, which is key to understanding his embrace of film, are both derived in part from his considerable experience working in theater. By scripting, directing, acting, and designing the sets, costumes, and posters for dozens of productions from 1975 to the present, Kentridge has become a master of finding the single gesture that sums up an entire personality.

Jamie Drouin & Yann Novak. +ROOM–ROOM preparation view. June 2007. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Jamie Drouin.

+ROOM-ROOM is a pair of sound installations for two adjacent galleries at the Henry. Artists Yann Novak and Jamie Drouin will each individually explore how the perception of these familiar places is transformed by sound. Through contrasting sensory experiences, the installations create an experiential divide between the two virtually identical rooms and restructure notions of architectural solidity and singularity in favor of more flexible, intuitive perceptions. The aural compositions, based on actual ambient noises recorded in the galleries, turn attention onto the spaces themselves and encourage us to rethink the ways in which we process physical location, and create assumptions about our surroundings. In collaboration with the artists, the Henry will produce a CD of stereo versions of the works.

Stay tuned to Hankblog as we feature these exhibitions, artists, and events in a series of posts in the next month.