Drone Gourd by Taketo Shimada



can we expand MUSIC?

Artists: Taketo Shimada, Calder Martin, Keith Connolly, Yuji Agematsu
Curator: Yuzo Sakuramoto

Date: May 17 – June 13, 2009
Opening: Sun., May 17, 4 – 6 p.m.
Publication Party: Sat., June 13, 6 – 9 p.m.
Gallery Hours: Thur – Sund, 1 – 6 p.m.
Location: FiveMyles
558 St. Johns Place
Brooklyn, NY 11238

Performance by Keith Connolly, Messages, Calder Martin, Pigeons: Sun., May 17, 6 p.m. and Sat., June 13, 6 p.m.

The four artists in this exhibition are both musicians and visual artists. This exhibition is presented as an attempt to explore different aspects of encounters between sound and image. With an emphasis on creative process, the exhibition, consisting of four installations, is itself an experiment into a possible unfolding of such encounters. It is also meant to be a documentation of, or status report on these artists, the first in an on-going series.

Taketo Shimada will present an installation that resembles his work environment; where music and visual art collide. He has made music with Tres Warren of Psychic Ills as Messages since 2006.  Doug Mosurak of Dusted commented that the Messages 7" record released by The Social Registry "is some heavy, humid drone, pregnant with 4am electricity. Best record in the Social Registry’s singles series to date."  His work has been shown at Postmasters Gallery, Wall Space Gallery and Emily Harvey Foundation.

Calder Martin will exhibit a synaesthetic video installation of complex luminous layering. Calder is a guitarist and visual artist and the founder of the band Vizusa. Arthur Magazine said that Vizusa’s debut LP "VizUSA is the new psychedelic simple, hard: the rock and roll of Buddy Holly bare bones with the doors of perception jimmyin' and repetitious riff milkin' of Les Rallizes Dénudés." Calder has produced video projections at the Kitchen for Caitlin Cook and company, and live music and installations at Deitch Projects with Exceptor. His work has been shown at Emily Harvey Foundation and Participant.

Keith Connolly will present the process of (de-)designing the cover of the forthcoming NNCK album. He is an artist and musician, and is a founding member of the No Neck Blues Band. His most recent work was exhibited at Parade Space in London. In New York he has exhibited his installations and performed live events at Greene Naftali Gallery, PS 1, Roulette and the Sculpture Center.

Yuji Agematsu is an artist/photographer. For the past thirty years he has been picking up discarded things from the street and meticulously archiving them. He has worked with Tokio Hasegawa, former member of Taj Mahal Travellers, and studied yara with Milford Graves. He is also a fervent fan of Cecil Taylor and Miles Davis.

can we expand Music? curator Yuzo Sakuramoto is a New York-based researcher, translator and the publisher of the legendary, now defunct fanzine Music. He recently translated the liner notes for the Taj Mahal Travellers album, Live in Stockholm 1971 and DVD, on "Tour," as well as Takehisa Kosugi’s Catch Wave ’97.