music for the 2014 artists’ congress @ the block museum.
I have put together a set of pop music recordings for the Artists’ Congress being held at Northwestern’s Block Museum this coming Saturday, 17 May 2014 from 1 to 5pm.
This Saturday’s Artists’ Congress is modeled after the American Artists’ Congress of 1936 as well as subsequent efforts during the late 1930s (and afterward) among primarily visual artists to explore the nature of what revolutionary art-making might involve. Much of this history and its art are represented in the current Block exhibition The Left Front: Radical Art in the “Red Decade,” 1929–1940.
Inspired by 1930s Left Front member Louis Lozowick’s question, “What Should Revolutionary Artists Do Today?” the Congress seeks to connect the past history of probing the lines between culture-making and social change to pressing contemporary issues, dilemmas, and ideas. My role has been to think about the “background” music for such an undertaking—and in doing so, perhaps to complicate the boundary between what is sonically in the background and what comes into view when visual art-making and its political dimensions are brought to the fore.
If you are in the Chicago area, do come by for what is sure to be an important, creative, and intriguing event. More on the making of the mix in my next post.