Due to the pandemic, the event scheduled in New York called “Joaquín Orellana, the vertebra of music” was suspended last May. January 19, 2021 will be the inauguration with an online conference and an exhibition open to the public in this city.
The pandemic changed plans to exhibit the exhibition Joaquín Orellana, the vertebra of music, inspired by the work of the Guatemalan musician, an event organized by the Americas Society, New York, USA.
The program will be directed by the Visual Arts and Music departments of this organization, which fosters dialogue between the United States and the rest of the hemisphere, in which the understanding of political, social and economic problems is worked, and it seeks to increase the appreciation of the diverse cultural heritage of the continent.
The event was scheduled for last May. Due to the pandemic, the event was postponed and now a part will be virtual, which will begin with a discussion on Tuesday, January 19, 2021 at 5:00 p.m. in Guatemala (6:00 p.m. New York). Those interested in participating, it is important to register on the site www.as-coa.org.
The inauguration will be attended by Joaquín Orellana, the exhibition co-curators Diana Flatto and Sebastián Zubieta, from the Americas Society, and Gabriela Rangel, artistic director of the Museum of Latin American Art in Buenos Aires. It will be moderated by Aimé Iglesias Lukin, director and curator of visual arts
“Orellana is one of the most important living composers in the musical history of the region, and the sound tools he has created also have a sculptural dimension, which is what we want to convey in the show in the United States,” said Sebastián Zubieta , musical director of Americas Society, in 2020 when he visited Guatemala to refine details of this event.
Orellana has created more than 60 sound tools. He himself has described that a sound tool is not a musical instrument in itself, it can be something as simple to something more complex, for example, “a flute or a violin has been the result of a great evolution in their way of articulating sound While a sound tool could be the sound of touching two stones or small seashells, the aim is to imagine a sound and give it body ”.
About the exhibition
The Americas Society presents, in addition to the discussion, the exhibition of the sound tools of the Guatemalan composer in the United States along with the work of contemporary artists. “Orellana is a key figure for both music and contemporary art in Central America, and his show expands the geographic and disciplinary boundaries of our exhibition program,” said Americas Society director and head of visual arts Aimé Iglesias Lukin.
It will be open from January 20 to March 5 and to visit it it is important to be aware of the health regulations of that country, as well as to make an appointment.
The exhibition will also feature the works of the artists Carlos Amorales, María Adela Díaz, Akira Ikezoe and Alberto Rodríguez Collía, who have created works inspired by the composer that have been transformed into video, prints and paintings.
The project was born to promote the figure of Orellana, who was born in Guatemala City in 1930. The Guatemalan artist studied violin and composition at the National Conservatory of Music of Guatemala and was a fellow of the preeminent Latin American Center for Musical Studies (CLAEM) at the Instituto Torcuato Di Tella of Buenos Aires. There, he became especially interested in electronic music, and after returning to Guatemala in 1968 he decided to invent alternatives to recreate the world of sound he imagined after his experiences in Argentina.
“These low-tech handcrafted instruments face the past and the future at the same time, but above all, they are communal and deeply ‘humanphonic’,” said Americas Society Co-curator and Music Director Sebastián Zubieta. As part of this project, Americas Society has commissioned a new composition by Orellana called Efluvios y Puntos, which will be released on video during the exhibition.
The effluvia refers to certain zones of sound movement; for example, between the rubbed aluminum of the tool called tubarc and the combination of voices of the artists and even the interaction of the attendees, Orellana described. The piece also has short sounds that speed up and slow down. The duration of the work is 15 minutes, approximately, and will include about 16 sound tools.
This exhibition will be accompanied by the next publication in the gallery’s pocket book series that includes texts by co-curators and illustrations of sound tools, archival material and sheet music, as well as works by contemporary artists. Public programs to be announced online, including concerts and panels
* With information from Prensa Libre.
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