Urkonzert (2017)

A recent work in my ongoing collaboration with Finnish artist Jan-Erik Andersson is the piece Urkonzert - an exhibition which is made up of a number of Andersson’s pieces, but which centers around a collaborative piece (originally titled Life Frieze Symphony) initially shown at the Sculptor gallery in Helsinki in 2016. The piece makes use of concrete cast speakers that initialted with forms Jan-Erik was casting in the earth that we converted to speaker form for this piece.

Here is Jan-Erik’s description of the work:

“The exhibition Urkonzert shows a collection of works, which celebrates humanity’s – futile looking – attempt to create beauty and meaning from geometry and from the seemingly chaotic nature, in a world, which is filled with uncertainty and violence. At the same time the exhibition is a personal meditation over my relationship to my father, the sea captain, and over my own role as model for my son. What have I received and what will I pass on?
The installation called Urkonzert, which gives the name to the whole exhibition, consists of three sculptures. It is a collaboration with sound artist Shawn Decker. We have been working together since 1996, among others in Berlin, Helsinki, Chicago, Wakefield (UK), Malmo, Turku and Brussels.
The sounds and music, created by Decker for the three Urkonzert sculptures, are adapted from and invoke the rhythms of the sea, and the daily life rhythms of work in, on, and around boats. Heavily influenced by both the patterns of post-minimalist music, and the rhythms of the natural world from field recordings and other sources. Everything heard is created specifically for the three sculptural objects they are sited within – and in concert are designed to create an acoustic space within which the sculptures reside.
The sounds come from speakers, which are made from concrete and casted in the earth. The metallic structures surrounding and holding up the speakers, are designed according to the golden measure, the pentagon, the octa- and icosa-hedron. The lowest sounds come from the blue, shovel shaped bench on which visitors can sit.
The other works in the exhibition deal with the relationship between a father and his son and the tensions, floating underneath the surface, which exist between generations. In the large digital drawings/collages I have used war-drawings I made as a young boy.
In the work Naval Battle on Waves 103 – 309 Hz I have arranged a fight between them and the cargo ships my father worked on. My father worked on the sea his whole life and ended up as a captain.
In the other collage, War, my troops, drawn as I child, meet my son Adrian’s forces, which he drew when he was 5-7 years sold.
On the floor there are a gun and two bullets, casted in the earth with concrete.”