Gust Burns
May 2013 | Gallery4Culture
review studies
May 2 – 31, 2013
Opening: First Thursday, May 2, 2013 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM
Artist Talk/Performance: Thursday, May 30 at 6:00 PM
Free and open to the public
Gallery4Culture proudly presents composer and artist Gust Burns in a May solo exhibition titled, review studies. Burns’ project is comprised of four parts: conceptual discourse, lush sonic landscape, textual assemblage, and phonographic performance. It explores the question of the interplay (and difference) between listening and understanding, and how we attempt to conceptualize the former. His approach to the project is partly conceptual, while exploring the theme of sensual intelligibility (a kind of intelligence of the senses).
Borrowing from the archive of 20th century music criticism, Burns uses these record reviews as the foundation for his show. He produced a series of audio recordings that are recitations of the appropriated texts -some recorded in the field at scenic locations, others produced as studio recordings. The readings are presented on digital (CD) and analog (vinyl acetate) playback in the gallery installation. Juxtaposed with the recordings, Burns presents newly constructed reviews as printed text posted on the gallery walls to be read. The inquiry can be boiled down to: how can we understand that which is heard by musical listening? And, how can we listen to language? The review studies project offers one opportunity to listen to this question.
About the Artist
Gust Burns is a Seattle-based composer, improviser and piano player and educator. Burns is recognized for his remarkable technique as an improviser in both jazz and experimental music. In addition to his own creative work, Gust Burns has for the past decade been director of the long-standing Seattle Improvised Music Festival. He directs and edits the online music and text journal Eulachon; he was co-founder of the experimental music space Gallery 1412. He is also pianist in the Wally Shoup Quartet. Burns studied with the Canadian jazz pianist Paul Plimley. He has received Individual Artist Funding from 4Culture.