Art galleries these days aren’t dusty, dry places where you have to maintain a reverent silence. Just ask the Tate: over the last few years they’ve hosted a series of huge Kraftwerk gigs and late-night musical sessions focusing on acid house and grime. Now the Whitechapel Gallery (established 1901) is getting with the programme, hosting a series of avant-garde concerts in its impressive second gallery.
Highbrow brilliance is the vibe, starting on October 1 with a meeting of minds. Leading British minimal music composer Gavin Bryars has collaborated with poet and painter Etel Adnan for three decades, and they’re performing five pieces with a chamber ensemble at the Whitechapel. That’s followed on October 3 by an afternoon double-bill, bringing together Paul Abbott and Cara Tolmie with Mikhail Karikis for a two-pronged audiovisual investigation of the human voice.
The series continues on October 15 when German sound artist Florian Hecker shows up for an evening performance. His drifting sheets of psychedelic electronic noise are just the thing to rinse out your brain after a busy Thursday. It’s Hassan Khan’s turn next: on October 17 he’ll mix up spiralling electronic melodies (part-inspired by his Egyptian background) with buzzing analogue synths and echoing piano.
The rest of the series includes an exciting collaboration between sound artist Ryoji Ikeda and cellist Oliver Coates, who’ll be generating visual patterns with the music they play on October 29, and a closing double-whammy from the New York avant-garde scene. Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore celebrates the work of composer and installation artist Maryanne Amacher on November 26, before Rhys Chatham (who’s worked over the years with Philip Glass, Robert Fripp, Arthur Russell and countless others) knocks the series on the head with a multi-instrumental solo set on November 28.
If you can’t make it down to any of the gigs there’s also a free rolling film programme exploring experimental music: everything from a ‘Tribute to John Cage’ to a version of Arnold Schoenberg’s atonal music played by cats. Go east and discover something you’ve never heard before.
