Gregory Allicar Museum of Art at Colorado State University is honored to announce Charley Friedman’s Soundtracks for the Present Future, a touring installation originating at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, in GAMA’s Spring 2024 exhibition lineup. On view in the Griffin Foundation Gallery from Jan. 17 to April 7, 2024, the installation will showcase over 60 secondhand guitars, mandolins and basses that create a singular, suspended instrument.
About ‘Soundtracks for the Present Future’
Soundtracks for the Present Future premiered in summer 2021 at Bemis Center in Omaha, Neb., which hosts a program focused specifically on sound art and experimental music. The installation has since traveled to the Everson Museum of Art in 2022 and the Duke Gallery at Azusa Pacific University in 2023.
As an immersive auditory installation that dissects and affirms visitors’ relationship to music as a stimulant and as an art form, Soundtracks explores decentralization and diversity through the multiplicity of distinct instruments: each is a unique character within a crowd, individual yet collective.
Suspended from the ceiling in a cluster, the exhibition’s instruments form a labyrinth of sounds and vibrations that perpetually shift as viewers navigate the work. The instruments “play” various musical works through computer software, ranging from classical European music to new or recent compositions modified for this installation. By exploring the diverse styles, genres and techniques of the medium, Friedman calls forth the imprint music can make.
Music has the power to stimulate a spectrum of emotions and memories, which in turn can build human connection and empathy and, at times, locate common ground. Together, the instruments highlight the power and harmony of a collective voice, while never overpowering the unique character of the lone guitar. The installation also loops these pre-programmed compositions, creating an ever-changing soundscape with no concrete beginning or end. As viewers move through Soundtracks, certain notes take prominence based on proximity to each instrument. This allows for completely individualized and self-directed encounters with the compositions, giving viewers the ability to affect their experience. No interaction is ever completely repeatable.
“Soundtracks offers a compelling and immersive experience that dovetails with our institutional desire to present interdisciplinary exhibitions,” said GAMA Director and Chief Curator Lynn Boland. “The exhibition brings together visual art, music, and computer science in a fun and exciting way. I also think it’s important for museums like ours to look at the tremendous engagement happening in venues engaging in what’s been dubbed ‘Big Fun Art.’ Soundtracks is a university museum’s answer to Meow Wolf and other immersive experiences.”
About Charley Friedman
Charley Friedman is a multimedia artist who works in sculpture, performance, photography, drawing and video to “tackle how we internalize and filter the world through magical thinking, institutionalized religion, and consumer culture…that reinforce our own egocentric world views.”
Friedman is a Pollock-Krasner grant recipient, a two-time Rema Hort nominee, and a Smack Mellon “Hot Picks” artist. He has exhibited and performed extensively at galleries and institutions internationally, including MoMA PS1, The Queens Museum, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, OMI International Art Center, The Fabric Workshop, Volta NYC, Pulse Miami, Barbara Mathes Gallery, Paul W. Zuccaire Gallery at Stony Brook University, VOLTA NYC, Joslyn Art Museum, Sheldon Museum of American Art, Museum of Nebraska Art, and Nina Johnson Gallery.
His work is in the collections of Walker Art Center, The Brooklyn Museum, The New York Public Library, Stanford University, Sheldon Museum of Art, and the Karen and Robert Duncan Collection. Selected publications include The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Miami Herald. He received his Master of Fine Arts degree from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston/Tufts University in 1996, attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1995, and received a BFA from Macalester College in St. Paul, MN. Residencies include Fountainhead, Norton Island Residency, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, MacDowell and PV Arts.
Friedman lives and works in Lincoln, Neb., where he co-founded and co-curates Fiendish Plots.
Artist talk and premiere of new musical compositions
Accompanying Soundtracks for the Present Future at Gregory Allicar Museum of Art is an artist talk by Charley Friedman, introduced by exhibition curator Rachel Adams from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Feb. 22. The event will also feature the premiere of several new musical works by contributing composers. A light reception will follow. Both the exhibition and related programming are free and open to the public.
