AGENTS OF TIMBRE
Print Exhibit
Sasha Barr and John Weeden, Curators
‘Agents of Timbre’ is an exhibition of prints by artists from across the nation who customarily produce show prints, or ‘gig posters’ for rock bands. It is the result of a series of conversations between Sasha Barr and John Weeden about their shared admiration for the immediacy of experience and street level accessibility this type of work provides to audiences, often club-goers and casual passers-by that would see such posters hung in café windows, telephone poles, or record shops promoting their favorite band coming through town on a cross-country tour.
For this show, the 19+ artists were asked to contribute their personal portfolio print works. So, while most of the different works on view do not advertise a particular band’s show or music venue, their various styles are still resonant of the rock scene that influences their overall perspective. Those familiar with music making will know that ‘timbre,’ is a term defining the quality of sound. In their normal work lives these artists are engaged with the task of communicating the feeling of sound and the atmospheric impact it has on an audience.
This pictorially dynamic work produced from traditional printing processes is design driven for quick communication of meaning to as many viewers as possible. Draftsmanship and composition skills are paramount in this world of music scene graphics where art acts as iconography, as a matter of course. Its reproducibility and no-fuss aesthetic ethos embodies a sort of populism that falls very much within the ‘art is for everyone,’ vein.
The works’ immediacy and approachability permits viewers usually unaccustomed to art galleries and the gallery system to participate in the conversation perhaps more readily or more fully than might otherwise be the case in more of a “white cube,” exhibition scenario.
The installation of this show is reflective of what is, for the most, the rough and ready style of work it presents. Concerned with what is happening on the surface of the paper more than any conceptual theories of its narrative agency or philosophical meaning, the work found within ‘Agents of Timbre,’ is quirky, unruly and disregards any confinements to the imagination.
The exhibition design, therefore, is similarly ad-hoc, improvisational, and aspires to echo the rebellious spirit of the work by articulating a space of creative cacophony within which the ‘chords’ of each work seem to almost reverberate off one another to frenetic effect.