Engulfing the eye, engulfing the ear

Robert Swain installation at Santa Monica Museum of Art, where Mark Trayle will perform Saturday afternoon. (Jeff McLane)

Mark Swed’s Critic’s Pick on the upcoming sound. concert at SMMoA…

“Music and painting sometimes share a language. Color is applicable to both, as is chromatic. They also share physics. Colors, for instance, are waveforms, as are tones.

Moreover, musicians and visual artists regularly inspire one another. Morton Feldman’s “Rothko Chapel,” which played late at night under the stars at the Ojai Festival last month, honors in tone Mark Rothko’s last paintings. Currently at the Timothy Taylor Gallery in London is…

One is the loneliest number

Great article by Joshua Wolf Shenk dissecting Lennon – McCartney as emblematic of the power of collaboration and creative partnership….quoting:

“For centuries, the myth of the lone genius has towered over us, its shadow obscuring the way creative work really gets done. The attempts to pick apart the Lennon-McCartney partnership reveal just how misleading that myth can be, because John and Paul were so obviously more creative as a pair than as individuals, even if at times they…

Charles Curtis, Alvin Lucier and melting glaciers

Melting Glacier

“…cellist Charles Curtis will play the Los Angeles premiere of Alvin Lucier’s “Glacier,” in the “sound.” series presented by SASSAS (Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound). But don’t expect to be lulled into climate indifference.”

“The 83-year-old American avant-garde composer has a special sonic and theatrical knack for finding a physical equivalent in sound to the world around us. In this recent score, he makes audible a graph of 30 glaciers melting, charting on the…