Sound Art: Beyond Music, Between CategoriesOver the past century, an art form has emerged that draws from the worlds of visual art and music. While sound's increasing importance in the art world is evidenced by recent exhibitions and books devoted to the subject, sound art has yet to be accurately defined. In this volume, author Alan Licht lays bear the origins of sound art, offering the reader the most thorough understanding of the field to date, and explores the genre's most important practitioners. Sound art's roots can be found in the experimental work of Italian Futurism, Dada, and later the Fluxus group in the early to mid-twentieth century. Perhaps the greatest advance in the genre, however, came with the work of the American composer and artist John Cage in the 1960s. In the wake of Cage's groundbreaking and hugely influential work, sound art began to mature, and artists explored the interactive possibilities of sound. These investigations created entirely new modes of experiencing and engaging with art and, more importantly, expanded our understanding of the nature of sound. The author also explores the convergence of the experimental music world - with bands such as Sonic Youth, among many others - with the visual art world, and vice versa (examples include Bruce Nauman, Marcel Duchamp, Richard Prince, and Jean-Michel Basquiat) looking at this critical cross-pollination that has generated important works. In addition, the book offers biographies on thirty major sound artists, affording the reader information on key influences and education and seminal works by each. A CD is included with six sound works by a range of artists, including Jean Dubuffet and more recent pieces by Steve Roden and Mike Kelley's band Destroy All Monsters. |
