Jennie C Jones | RPM

 

Jennie C Jones

RPM

New Canaan, USA: The Glass House, 2018

20 x 20 cm.

Edition of 18 [+5 AP] signed and numbered copies 

RPM (revolutions per minute) is a limited edition 7"45 RPM lathe cut single housed in a letterpress sleeve. The work brings together two commissioned audio collages from the artist’s 2018 exhibition at The Glass House. The sound works respond to the Philip Johnson–designed Glass House and Sculpture Gallery. The title track employs a harmonious combination of solfeggio frequencies that considers the aural environment of the Glass House. In "Year of Construction: 1970," the aforementioned sound carries over as an undertone and is transformed by a counterpoint of predominantly black sonic practices from the year 1970, including Alice Coltrane, Alvin Singleton, Milford Graves, and Yusef Lateef. 

Johnson’s Glass House was completed in 1949, the same year that RCA Victor released the first 

45 RPM singles. 

SIDE A [3:36]

RPM (revolutions per minute), 2018

Singing Bowl, Glass Bowl, Digital Tone. All 528 HZ, a healing frequency.

SIDE B [3:19]

Year of Construction: 1970, 2018

Sourced from: Dorothy Ashby, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Alice Coltrane, Miles Davis, Svein Finnerud Trio, Milford Graves, Andrew Hill, Yusef Lateef, “The Lumpen” Black Panther Party Revolutionary Band, Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders, and Alvin Singleton. All composed or recorded in 1970.

"Typically, I listen to music when I make work, but right now I’m in a gap of quiet in the studio. I need that aural palate cleanser and a moment to be still, so that I can return to music with new energy. Silence has an important role in my work, and there’s a formal relationship between my use of silence and historical silencing more broadly. Modernism in America was shaped during the postwar period, at a time when so much exciting Black music was also being made, but the bridge between the two was never built. My aesthetic strategies allow me to talk about the absence of these histories and push them to the fore. For example, my sculpture of a one-string at The Met is an homage to Louis Dotson and Moses Williams, two improvisers from Mississippi who performed on handmade versions of the instrument, and whose contributions to the history of avant-garde music have been all but forgotten.”

- Jennie C Jones