As the year continues, many of these posts will be philosophical in nature. Some will be in contradiction to previous postings. These are not intended as truths or assertions, they’re merely thoughts…ideas. Think of this as stream of consciousness over a wide span…
I’m trying to remember on which podcast I heard it this week [ed. I’ve been searching, but to no avail], but there was a news story about Emeka Ogboh and his reconstruction of Lagos soundscapes as art installations in which, I believe it was a curator somewhere, talked about him as if he was the only artist in the world working exclusively with sound…”without some sort of visual component.” Please understand, this is in no way a critique of Ogboh or his work. I’m happy that his art is out there and getting the attention it deserves. It was just a reminder of how overlooked sound is within the arts community. If you want a more visible example, just look at the Tony Awards brouhaha from 2014, which is still being felt today.
I can quickly pull up examples on Google from prominent news sources. I could event point to Audium in San Francisco; which, despite its success, is still a rather underground art experience. Why do I define it as successful? Well it hosts two performances a week (many of which sell out), and does so from it’s own permanent installation on Bush St. near the border of Nob Hill and The Tenderloin…a space which it has occupied since 1965!
That curator pissed me off. Yes it’s her job to find the next big thing and promote it as a way to bring patrons into galleries and museums, but it’s also her job to put that work into the context of the broader art community. This comment is demeaning in two ways. She belittled the work of all those other sound artists out there, of whom she is apparently ignorant. She also belittled the work of Ogboh by not explaining why his work is important within that broader field of sound art.
It’s easy to be important when no one else is doing it, and far more impressive when a work has genuine value in a wider community. Sound work still has a visibility issue, so Ogboh needs to be celebrated for his success and thanked for the attention it brings to our craft. Well done, sir!
In the last decade “sound art” has become terribly trendy, and most of what has been presented in galleries comes from those creators with backgrounds in “fine arts.” Curators want work that can be easily packaged for presentation in a traditional “white cube” space, and of course it’s the “fine artists” who have been trained to package work for such settings, so naturally, they tend to be the ones that get noticed. I mean, every dude and his dog is a “phonographer” these days, yet some dude puts a soundscape in a gallery (mind you, the voguishness of African art certainly helps here) and suddenly it’s the first time anyone has drawn attention to a city soundscape, it’s laughable. Many “fine” artists, and curators, are utterly clueless about the broader history of sound based art, and in particular know little if anything about acousmatic arts, a tradition that stretches back to at least the late 1940s, so no wonder someone like this thinks new ground has been broken.