For the 26th Kaldor Art project, internationally renowned artistic duo Jennifer Allora (1974 Pennsylvania, USA) and Guillermo Calzadilla (1971, Havana Cuba), present Stop, Repair , Prepare: Variations on 'Od to Joy' for a Prepared Piano.
The artist duo have produced experimental and interdisciplinary body of work combining performance, sculpture, video and sound. Throughout their diverse past works, they have often explored the histories and meanings implicit in the culture that surrounds us 0- from architecture and objects to music and bodily movement - reconfiguring and recontextualising these elements to create their poetic artworks
This music-art installation was first exhibited at Has der Kunst in Munich in 2008 and has since been presented at MOMA in New York (2010).
Stop, Repair, Prepare creates a relationship between the sculpture, the piano player and the piece of music. The artists have cut a large hole from the centre of a Bechstein grand piano and made adjustments to the pedals, to allow the pianist to enter the piano ad play it from within, bearing it with them as they traverse a choreographed path through the gallery.
The works draw on Fluxus artist and composer John Cage's 'prepared pain' performances from the 1940's and 50's, in which CAge altered the instruments's timber throughout eh placement of objects such as screws or bolts along the piano strings and hammers. Here the artists' method of 'preparation ' is more dramatic, recalling the circular segments cut from Gordon Matta-Clark's architectural interventions, they completely alter the function of the piano, techniques required to play it and the experience of the audience.
The composition is the 4th movement of Beethoven's famous 9th Symphony, known as 'Ode to Joy' and widely understood as a hymn to humanity, a testament to human fraternity and brotherhood. This piece is performed hourly, with pianists stepping under and into the piano and caching over the top to play.
In Allora & Calzadilla's variation, the work is recognisable but incomplete as the cut renders two octaves of the piano inoperable and the resulting keys leave only a hollow resonance. Although it was advertised as a "poetic meditation on art, idealism and power" the performance lacked some dynamic energy and the acoustics within the State Library of Melbourne, failed to create sound immersion.
