Chris Kallmyer: Listening is a Luxury

The exhibition uses everyday materials to explore the accessibility of listening and real and imagined sound.

Color image of seated man on gallery floor performing with sound sculptures to a crowd of folks behind him

FraenkelLAB is pleased to present the multi-faceted exhibition Chris Kallmyer: Listening is a Luxury from May 18 – June 17, 2017. Chris Kallmyer is a sound artist, curator, and performer whose work explores a participatory approach to making music. Listening is a Luxury will bring together objects, performance, and a book of musical scores through which the artist questions the accessibility of listening and how the ear can be enlivened through real and imagined sound.

Chris Kallmyer, Commonfield Clay (video still), 2015

The exhibition will feature Kallmyer’s project Commonfield Clay, in which soil was made into sound. Through a residency at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis, Kallmyer created ceramic chimes from clay collected from the banks of the Mississippi River. At FraenkelLAB, the earthenware instruments in Commonfield Clay will be activated with performances by Kallmyer and a number of Bay Area artists during the opening reception on May 18 and on Friday evenings from May 26 through June 16.

For Listening is a Luxury, Kallmyer also will debut All Possible Music, an oversized book of musical scores reflecting different conceptualizations of what music could be—including music that could never happen. The book, created through a process similar to exquisite corpse drawings, aims to conceive of music in an expansive context, including the following scores:

Chris Kallmyer, All Possible Music, 2017

FraenkelLAB, opened in April 2016 and spearheaded by Frish Brandt and Jeffrey Fraenkel, is Fraenkel Gallery’s venue for adventurous artwork from any era and in any medium. Follow @fraenkelLAB on Instagram for the latest news about upcoming events.

Chris Kallmyer: Listening is a Luxury Solo Performance
Duration: 00:14:10 | Release Date: May 2017

Works on View

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