Sonic Youth | No Discipline | Part II
March 6, 2009 · Print This Article
Sonic Youth were never just whirring feedback and loads of distortion. For the past 27 years, this famous postpunk band was also a crystallization point for a network that goes from cool to artsy, from avant-garde to sectarianism, and is ambitious and multidisciplinary across all the arts. To shed light on the furthest reaches of this cosmos, an exhibition is currently touring through Europe: “Sonic Youth etc. – Sensational Fix.” We asked the curators and artists involved in the project for their own personal feedback.
Graphic Artist
What’s your private link to Sonic Youth?
I know Lee Ranaldo because we have both done projects at CNEAI in Paris. He shares my interest in printmaking and we have met a few times.
What’s your favorite album/song of Sonic Youth?
Evol is my favorite album. It’s hard to pick a favourite track.
Sonic Youth are considered as an “art rock band” mixing the disciplines. How do you work multi-disciplinarily?
I work across a lot of different media. I think it’s because I get bored easily. I guess when you have been in a rock band for 25 years you might get a bit bored too, so it’s necessary to mix things up a little.
David Shrigley, „Untitled“, 2005, courtesy of the artist and Yvon Lambert
Describe the particular Sonic Youth style.
Complete vocabulary of rock noise.
What Sonic Youth record would you rather have made the cover design for?
I don’t think it would matter. Doing a SY cover is like being included in the MOMA collection; you get to be alongside great artists like Raymond Pettibon, Gerhard Richter, Mike Kelley…
What’s so sexy about Sonic Youth?
What I love about Sonic Youth is that they are facilitators as well as artists. They are constantly creating space for other artists (No Fun Fest, Ecstatic Peace label, etc, etc). I love going to see SY as much to see who they have supporting them as to see the band themselves.
Multi-Media Artist
What’s your private link to Sonic Youth?
We had mutual friends. I also played in an 80’s art rock band called “Party Boys” and we were on the same independent label way back in the “Death Valley 69” days. I remember seeing them perform in loft parties…
How was your first meeting with Kim and Thurston?
They came to our house with their baby. I don’t know if it was the first time I met them or if it just stuck in my mind. We had never had a baby in the house before. Coco slept soundly the whole time. I thought that’s what babies did. It turned out I was wrong.
What’s your favorite album/song of Sonic Youth?
They really mark history for me rather than by favorite songs or albums.
Sonic Youth are considered as an “art rock band” mixing the disciplines. How do you work multi-disciplinarily?
I work in many mediums: film, collage, music, sculpture and costuming. The disciplines are tied together through a narrative. My current narrative is that of a work of fiction I created revolving around a group of girls who died young and have come back to play music in a band. They are called “The Spirit Girls.” Their story is told through the different mediums. I have made two films starring them and the collages are of the girls in their otherworldly landscapes. The sculptures are of their pets or cohorts. Musically we have put out a record and we play live in costumes and in wigs and masks as “The Spirit Girls.” Our music is inspired by the 70’s and we use vintage synths to help get the sound. This narrative will continue for at least another year or two and then I’ll move on to something different.
Marnie Weber, „Bunny Teeth Lady, 1998 courtesy Galerie Praz Delavallade, Paris/Berlin
What’s so sexy about Sonic Youth?
Kim.
Video, Performance and Installation Artist
What are you presenting at the show “Sensational Fix”?
They are showing small collages I made during the period of the “Hamster Girl” piece as well as the collage from the album cover. They are a blend of women, girls, and animals in nature settings. The hamster girl is sitting in a bed looking terrified as a giant hamster looms in front of her. We don’t know how it will turn out…
What’s your private link to Sonic Youth?
Sometimes I think it’s a phone number, a message machine. To keep it really low-key I use numbers such as: 25533374887280099478356871349755587235847557812221351112358760875812365478. It was generated randomly by a top private music/backwardmasking/hit analysis system. It’s a good way to imbed content into any cultural content, musically speaking.
Tony Oursler, „Sound Digressions in Seven Colors,“ courtesy of the artist, Foto > © Marc Domage
How was your first meeting with Kim and Thurston?
Blurry, but it’s coming in clearly now. Big energy in a small room on the edge of Chinatown and Little Italy.
What’s your favourite album/song of Sonic Youth?
I like them all!
Sonic Youth work multi-disciplinarily. You too—why?
KC and the Sunshine Band said it best: “That’s the way I like it.”
What are your current projects?
I have one of my crew call phone sex lines and record the conversations.
What’s the particular Sonic Youth style?
Love or Evol
What Sonic Youth record would you rather have made the cover design for?
All of them. No really, they are all perfect. Kids look at these things for a long long time—they have a very unique effect on the 8-18 year old set. You should be talking to youth.
Tell us about your work to be presented at the show “Sensational Fix.”
“Sound Digressions in Seven Colors”—the editing of the musicians from screen to screen and the phasing of the relationship between the music allows for endless combinations to develop live in the exhibition space thus extending the improvisational elements of the work. Chance plays this neverending video and sound installation. This installation is reliant on the immense talent and generosity of the seven performers.
„Sonic Youth etc. – Sensational Fix“, Kunsthalle und KIT Düsseldorf,
31. Januar – 10. Mai 2009
www.kunsthalle-duesseldorf.de
www.kunst-im-tunnel.de
First Picture > Archives Sonic Youth, Foto > © Marc Domage
Interviews > Marcus Woeller
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