World of Echo: Arthur Russell and Julius Eastman
Program
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Gallery Hours
Wednesday–Sunday, 12-6pm and during concert intermissions
Closed on Mondays and Tuesdays -
Borrowing its title from Arthur Russell’s 1986 album, this exhibition reconsiders the legacies of two maverick artists—Arthur Russell and Julius Eastman—focusing on their intersections, shared spaces, and continued echoes today. The show takes Seth Parker Woods’ audio installation The Holy Presence—which presents his performance of the 10 cello parts in Eastman’s 1981 masterwork The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc in an array of speakers—as a model for an immersive, focused, and somatic intersection of the artist’s work. Other contemporary artists in the exhibition who contend with the legacy of Julius Eastman and Arthur Russell include: Devendra Banhart, Julia Holter, Roberto Carlos Lange, Justen Leroy, Kyle Marshall, Missy Mazzoli, Moor Mother, Dave Muller, Ethan Philbrick, Adee Roberson, Christopher Rountree, claire rousay, Kristi Sword, Adam Tendler, Davóne Tines, Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste & LaMont Hamilton, Saul Williams, Wild Up, Matt Wolf, richard valitutto, and Andrew Yee. Incorporating archival materials including rarely seen video and newly available audio, the exhibition draws attention to the various modes of collaboration between Eastman and Russell—as curator, conductor, performer, musician, and friend—from 1975 until their all-too-early deaths. With particular attention to the ways in which their work implicated the queer body and utilized language as modes of liberation, this exhibition seeks to reimagine their legacies as multi-hyphenate, world-straddling artists whose work together encompasses the breadth and possibility of creativity expanding from classical performance and minimalist composition to the rise of disco and dance to experimental intermedia work.
Exhibition Walkthroughs:
March 29 at 7pm
May 2 at 7pm
May 4 at 1pm
About To the Fullest
The music of legendary collaborators Julius Eastman and Arthur Russell is singular and boundless. These are expansive, quintessentially queer pieces in which every moment is full of choice. Their profound and personal sounds demand that performers become unabashedly themselves, merging and getting lost in the notes and rhythms, finding themselves again and again, and emerging whole and newly committed to self. This intrapersonal endeavoring is matched externally with musical structures that create profound belonging within a group.
This project represents a landmark collaboration between LA Phil Insight, REDCAT, and Wild Up uplifting the legacies of these maverick artists.
Exhibition Booklet
