#michaelsnow

Musics for Piano, Whistling, Microphone, and Tape Recorder, 1975 #MichaelSnow https://www.instagram.com/p/CngM7h5NT5d/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Walking Woman record by the Legendary Artist Michael Snow. When the Canadian artist Michael Snow left Toronto for New York in 1962, he had already established a reputation as an artist whose carreer was on the rise. When he returned to Toronto in 1971, that reputation had extended to Europe and the United States, and had been earned in a variety of artistic disciplines, including painting, filmmaking and avant-garde music. Snow was an aesthetic polymath and in New York he was able to investigate the discrete areas of the times, and not a reflection of divisible categories in Snow’s own artistic sensibility. As he said in 1967, “My Paintings are done by a filmmaker, sculpture by a musician, films by a musician, music by a sculptor … sometimes they all work together.” The primary tool Snow used to effect that aesthetic migration was the outlined silhouette of a walking woman, “just a drawing,” he said, and “not a very good one either!” The “Walking Woman Works,” which he first exhibited in Toronto in 1962 at the Isaacs Gallery, occupied his attention for a significant portion of the years he spent in New York. She was–and remains–an image with the iconographic potency of Wesselmann’s Great American Nudes and de Kooning’s toothy women, although his image is neither fierce nor consistently eroticized. But Snow was able to use the walking woman in innumerable pieces, some 200 in total, which he made before retiring her in his 1967 film, * Wavelength. *”The Walking Woman” was a visual embodiment of the subject in Pound’s poem, “Portrait d’une Femme;” an encounter with her would allow you to “take strange gain away.” Viewers of her multiple incarnations in paintings, sculptures and photographs, and on sweatshirts and posters were variously bewildered and charmed. Snow placed her cut-out black plywood form in different urban contexts in Toronto and New York, and then photographed the reactions of passersby. His assessment of the effect these “often beautiful compositions” had on people is telling: they were “neurotic, erotic, aesthetic.” #Michaelsnow #canadianlegend #artist #postmodernist #Toronto #thesix #todot #canadianart #Torontonian #torontoart #jazz https://www.instagram.com/p/CcwAx1GpRsA/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#MilfordGraves & #NewYorkArtQuartet at #MichaelSnow’s Loft, c. 1960s #WillGamble https://www.instagram.com/p/CcgF8y-t02h/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

NYC experimental film lovers, get psyched for the complete Michael Snow retrospective running tomorrow, December 3 through Sunday, December 12 @anthologyfilmarchives with 'Michael Snow: Cover to Cover,' published by @primaryinfo & @lightindustry !!!⁠ ⁠ For years an out-of-print rarity, Canadian artist, filmmaker and musician Michael Snow's (born 1928) classic 1975 artist's book 'Cover to Cover' is available once again, in this facsimile edition. Unconstrained by discipline, Snow famously remarked that his sculptures were made by a musician, his films by a painter. Flipping through 'Cover to Cover,' which is composed entirely of photographs in narrative sequence, one might describe it as a book made by a filmmaker. Each individual page features a distinct moment, seen from one perspective on the front, and from a diametrically opposed angle on the back, occasionally pivoting between interior and exterior spaces. Midway through the book, the images are inverted such that the volume must be turned upside-down to be looked at right-side up. The result is an elegant, disorienting study in simultaneity. With this work, wrote Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, “Michael Snow has challenged the reader's/viewer's notion of a book, indeed one's very notion of perception.”⁠ ⁠ More via linkinbio.⁠ ⁠ #michaelsnow #facsimile #michaelsnowcovertocover #conceptualart #conceptualfilm #experimentalfilm⁠ ⁠ ⁠ https://www.instagram.com/p/CW-1dNXFHF1/?utm_medium=tumblr

I had a wonderful conversation with Tosh Berman and Kimley Maretzo about Common Tones for their Book Musik podcast. Check it out here.

I was a guest on John Allen’s JA in the AM show on WFMU today, playing various tracks related to the Common Tones tome. It’s archived here.

Get it while it’s hot! Alan Licht’s 592-page interview compendium ‘Common Tones’ is new from @blankforms_ (and probably going to sell out fast)!⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ For the past 30 years, Licht has been a performer, programmer and chronicler of NYC’s art and music scenes. His dry wit, deep erudition and unique perspective—informed by decades of experience as a touring and recording guitarist in the worlds of experimental music and underground rock—have distinguished him as the go-to writer for profiles of adventurous artists across genres. A precocious scholar and improvisor, by the time he graduated from Vassar College in 1990 Licht had already authored important articles on minimalist composers La Monte Young, Tony Conrad and Charlemagne Palestine, and recorded with luminaries such as Rashied Ali and Thurston Moore. In 1999 he became a regular contributor to @thewiremagazine while continuing to publish in periodicals ranging from the artworld glossies to underground fanzines.⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ Common Tones gathers a selection of never-before-published interviews, many conducted during the writing of Licht’s groundbreaking profiles, alongside extended versions of his celebrated conversations with artists, previously untranscribed public exchanges and new dialogues. Even Lou Reed, a notoriously difficult interviewee, was impressed.⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ Interviews with Vito Acconci, ANOHNI, Cory Arcangel, Matthew Barney, Glenn Branca, Rhys Chatham, Tony Conrad, the Dream Syndicate’s Karl Precoda, Richard Foreman, Henry Flynt, Milford Graves, Adris Hoyos, Ken Jacobs, Jutta Koether, Christian Marclay, Phill Niblock, Alessandra Novaga, Tony Oursler, Lou Reed, Kelly Reichardt, The Sea and Cake, Suicide, Michael Snow, Greg Tate, Tom Verlaine, Rudy Wurlitzer and Yo La Tengo’s Georgia Hubley & Ira Kaplan.⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ @irvifran #alanlicht #commontones #michaelsnow @avantgroidd #tonyconrad #henryflynt @therealylt #karlprecoda @officialalanvega #christianmarclay @loureedofficial #tomverlaine @tonyoursler @theseaandcake #matthewbarney @arcangelsurfware #kenjacobs #juttakoether @anohni #richardforeman #glennbranca @rhysrhythmchatham #phillniblock #rudywurlitzer #kellyreichardt @alessandra_novaga #adrishoyos #milfordgraves https://www.instagram.com/p/CSMYJHVM1LP/?utm_medium=tumblr

http://www.moma.org/collection/works/66319