PHILL NIBLOCK
Two projects of black and white photographic prints created and shown in the 1980's, titled "Buildings along Soho Broadway" and "Streetcorners in the South Bronx".
Buildings along Soho Broadway, cover a few blocks of Broadway in New York, from Howard Street to Prince Street. This is called the "cast iron" district, because the facades of buildings, and inner structures, were made of iron.They were photographed with a very high resolution, fine grain 35mm film, Kodak Tech Pan, using a Nikon camera and lens. All the photos were taken at the same time of day, not with direct sunlight. I stood close to the buildings, looking steeply upward. So the result is like a landscape.
I had walked this street, close to where I live, many, many times, but had seldom looked up at the tops of the buildings.
Streetcorners in the South Bronx, was photographed in the area of the south Bronx in New York City, in the late 1970's. This area was derelict, deserted, very few buildings were left standing, very few were inhabited. It looked like a bombed area. To photograph, I stood on a kitchen stool in the middle of each of several intersections, looking down each street, in all four directions from the intersection, with a street name sign in each photo. The prints are mounted in a grid, with north at the top.
Jazz Musician photos
These 15 photographs are from the period 1961 - 64. As a jazz fan, I began to photograph in clubs and recording sessions. At a meeting of the Duke Ellington Jazz Society, I met Jerry Valburn, a recording engineer and recording archivist. He was a close associate of Stanley Dance, the jazz critic and biographer of Duke Ellington and Count Basie, among others. I was invited by Jerry to a concert of the Ellington band on Long Island, NY. Then to a session of Ellington at Columbia Records. After I showed Jerry (and Dance) the photographs, I was invited to many Ellington recording sessions. I met Mercer Ellington, Duke's son, who was involved in Ellington's archive. I began to supply prints of my work to them. The last record to be issued by Riverside Records was an Ellington and Strayhorn Duo LP, which had one of the pictures in this set on the cover. It was not credited to me
(sigh). It is also on the CD reissue of the record.
This is the first time these photos have been formally exhibited. Thanks to Sara Serighelli of O'artoteca for inviting me, and for the pleasure of working with Paolo Romano at Angelo Colombo's shop - LAB laboratorioartibovisa.
Phill Niblock, videoartista, filmaker, cineasta, musicista è nato negli Stati Uniti nel 1933. Una vita e una carriera spesa sul sottile confine di sperimentazione e integrazione tra arti e discipline, tra tecniche tradizionali e nuove tecnologie, tra linguaggi lineari e contaminazioni espressive.
Fondatore a New York a metà degli anni ‘60 del progetto discografico Experimental Intermedia (www.experimentalintermedia.org), che in epoca non sospetta e con grande preveggenza iniziava ad analizzare le possibili interazioni tra i diversi media e le prime potenzialità dei computer, Phill Niblock è anche colui che negli stessi anni ha fondato un’etichetta, la Xi Records, che ancora oggi è considerata label di riferimento per gli amanti dell’elettronica sperimentale di tutto il mondo. La musica di Phill Niblock ha una continua spinta cinetica che fa sentire l'ascoltatore in viaggio su un lento veicolo che lo porta direttamente all'interno di ogni singolo dettaglio dell'immagine. Niblock è un artista multidisciplinare che usa la musica, la pellicola, la fotografia, il video e il computer. Genera sottili, profondi droni ('correnti sonore') di musica, riempiti da microtoni da timbri strumentali i quali a loro volta generano altre sonorità nello spazio performativo. I suoi film e video mescolano il soggetto socio/antropologico dell’uomo
impegnato nelle sue attività lavorative a immagini astratte in bianco e nero generate dal computer e fluttuanti nel tempo.
Phill Niblock is an intermedia artist using music, film, photography, video and computers. Niblock makes thick, loud drones of music, filled with microtones of instrumental timbres which generate many other tones in the performance space. Simultaneously, he presents films / videos which look at the movement of people working, or computer driven black and white abstract images floating through time. He was born in Indiana in 1933. Since the mid-60's he has been making music and intermedia performances which have been shown at numerous venues around the world among which: The Museum of Modern Art NYC; The Wadsworth Atheneum; the Kitchen; the Paris Autumn Festival; Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels; Institute of Contemporary Art, London; Akademie der Kunste, Berlin; ZKM; Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard; World Music Institute at Merkin Hall NYC. Since 1985, he has been the director of the Experimental Intermedia Foundation in New York (<http://www.experimentalintermedia.org/>) where he has been an artist/member since 1968. He is the producer of Music and Intermedia presentations at EI since 1973 (about 1000 performances) and the curator of EI's XI Records label. Phill Niblock's music is available on the XI, Moikai, Mode and Touch labels. A DVD of films and music is available on the Extreme label.
|
