The Infinite Mix is a Hayward Gallery pop-up exhibition presented in association with The Vinyl Factory. It takes place at new creative space The Store, 180 The Strand, London WC2R 1EA.
The Infinite Mix: Contemporary Sound and Image is an exhibition of audiovisual artworks that are soulful and audacious in their exploration of a wide range of subjects. In all of the works in this exhibition the interplay between moving image and sound is crucial. Most of the artists have composed, commissioned or remixed soundtracks that relate to the visual element of their work in unexpected ways, and ensure that what you hear is just as important as what you see. Drawing on varied genres including documentary filmmaking, music video, experimental film and theatrical performance, these artworks dispense with straightforward storytelling and unfold in a manner akin to musical compositions. Together, they expand the ways in which we experience moving images and sound, and open up new veins of meaning in art’s potentially ‘infinite mix.’
Martin Creed, Work No. 1701 (2013)
In Martin Creed’s Work No. 1701 a range of individuals cross a New York street accompanied by a jubilant pop song written and performed by the artist. Creed, who has been writing songs and leading a band for over 20 years, explains that both his music and his visual work comes from the desire to ‘say hello, to try to communicate somehow.’
Jeremy Deller & Cecilia Bengolea, Bom Bom's Dream (2016)
Bom Bom’s Dream (2016) – a collaboration between Jeremy Deller and Argentinian dancer and choreographer Cecilia Bengolea – follows the fantastic adventures of a Japanese dancer known as Bom Bom as she travels to Jamaica to participate in the local dancehall music scene. With its low-fi special effects and fantasy sequences, the video is a cross-cultural, contemporary equivalent to Alice in Wonderland.
Stan Douglas, Luanda-Kinshasa (2013)
Shot like a documentary film on set carefully crafted to resemble a legendary New York recording studio, Stan Douglas’s Luanda-Kinshasa (2013) depicts a fictional 1970s jazz-funk band engaged in a seemingly endless real-time jam. The band’s improvisation is in fact a construction: intricately remixed by Douglas in the editing room, it extends through over six hours of ‘alternate takes’ created by recombining various shots and accompanying sections of music.
Cyprien Gaillard, Nightlife (2015)
Cyprien Gaillard’s 3D film and audio installation Nightlife (2015) was shot at night over a period of two years in Cleveland, Los Angeles and Berlin. Accompanied by a dub soundtrack featuring a looped sample of Alton Ellis’s 1970 classic ‘Black Man’s World’, it weaves together elliptical references to racism in the US and Germany, taking in a bomb-damaged sculpture in front of Cleveland Museum of Art; riotous windblown trees in dark LA streets and a fireworks display above Berlin’s Olympiastadion.
Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, OPERA (QM.15), (2016)
In the holographic illusion OPERA (QM.15) Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster appears in the guise of legendary soprano Maria Callas. Dressed in the singer’s signature red dress and makeup, the artist lip-syncs to arias from Cherubini’s Medea, Verdi’s La Traviata and Ponchielli’s La Gioconda. Situated at the end of a derelict corridor in 180 The Strand, this luminous figure is at first startlingly life-like.
Kahlil Joseph, m.A.A.d. (2014)
Kahlil Joseph’s dual-screen installation m.A.A.d (2014) offers a prismatic portrait of the people of streets of Compton, a working class and largely African-American neighbourhood in Los Angeles. Made in response to Kendrick Lamar’s 2012 album good kid, m.A.A.d city, it brings together home videos shot by the singer’s uncle, news footage of police violence and Joseph’s own footage of Compton, which veers from scenes of everyday life to episodes of magical realism and the macabre.
Elizabeth Price, K (2015)
In her two-screen video installation K (2015) Elizabeth Price brings together disparate elements – text, image, synthetic voice and a stark, percussive soundtrack – in a dense and complex exploration of collective emotion, performance and mechanised production. Binding the visual elements of the film together is a narrative composed by Price and attributed to a fictional group of ‘professional mourners.’
Ugo Rondinone, THANX 4 NOTHING (2015)
Ugo Rondinone’s immersive multi-screen video installation features legendary beat poet John Giorno performing ‘THANX 4 NOTHING’. In this poem written on his 70th birthday, Giorno looks back at his life – and the people and events that shaped it – with humour and compassion. Rondinone’s carefully choreographed multi-screen installation – which features long shots, intimate close ups and passages of high-speed editing – keeps pace with Giorno’s theatrical delivery and draws attention to the poem’s many rhetorical twists and turns.
Rachel Rose, Everything and More (2015)
In Everything and More, US astronaut David Wolf narrates his experience of looking down on Earth from space and the sensory disorientation he experienced on his return. Wolf’s disembodied narration is accompanied by a visual collage that mixes galactic imagery – created by manipulating basic materials including milk, oil and water with an air compressor – with scenes shot in a neutral buoyancy laboratory and at an electronic music concert.
Exhibition curated by Ralph Rugoff, Director, Hayward Gallery
Project Curator: Eimear Martin
Assistant Curator: Charu Vallabhbhai
Special Curatorial Assistant: Helen Batley
Find out more about the exhibition at www.theinfinitemix.com and www.southbankcentre.co.uk/theinfinitemix.
#TheInfiniteMix
Opening Hours of The Store, 180 The Strand:
Tuesday to Saturday 12 - 8pm
Sunday 12 - 7pm
Free entry
A fully illustrated catalogue featuring an introductory essay by Ralph Rugoff, in-depth discussions of the individual works by a range of authors and interviews with several of the artists is available from www.shop.southbankcentre.co.uk
