A film about British nightlife, a speaker stack like no other and Woolworths.
Three of the things to look and listen out for as Kaiser Chiefs take over York Art Gallery.
The Leeds band will open their very first exhibition on December 14 – and it promises to be a stimulating experience.
“The team at YAG have helped us to pull together a selection of amazing works that represent to us what sound can be and do in both art and music and the space in between,” the band said.
“They have brought to life our ideas exploring how creative processes can be defined in different ways.”
Here are some of the highlights.
1. 40 speaker choir
Janet Cardiff’s evocative The Forty Part Motet allows people to walk through an oval of speakers to hear a reworking of Thomas Tallis’ Spem in Alium Nunquam Habui, from the singers’ point of view. The band selected the sound installation because of its relevance to how they hear their own music while performing – ‘an all encompassing space of sound’.
2. British nightlife on film
The short film Fiorucci Made me Hardcore by Mark Leckey was described by the Guardian as “…perhaps the finest portrayal of British nightlife ever captured”.
3. The Woolworth’s Choir
The Turner Prize winning work The Woolworth’s Choir of 1979 by Elizabeth Price is a video combining architecture, a 1960s music performance and footage from a deadly fire at a Woolworth’s store in Manchester.
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4. Paintings matched with songs
The show will also feature works drawn from York Art Gallery’s own collection by artists such as Bridget Riley, Jack Butler Yeats, L.S. Lowry and John Hoyland which inspire an accompanying ‘set list’ of songs selected by the band. An installation entitled Silent Gig will use light, colour, and lyrics to create an immersive environment that offers visitors a reconfigured experience of a live music show and its elements.
The art and music ‘set list’ in full:
- Bridget Riley: Study 4 for Painting With Two Verticals
- Julia Holter – Sea Calls Me Home
- L S Lowry – The Bandstand, Peel Park, Salford.
- The Kinks – The Village Green Preservation Society
- John Golding – H.19 (Canticle)
- Beach Boys – Caroline No
- Jack Butler Yeats – That We May Never Meet Again
- Mercury Rev – The Dark Is Rising
- Oliver Bevan – Flickering Grid II
- Super Furry Animals – Pan Ddaw’r Wawr
- JMW Turner – The Dormitory and Transept of Fountains Abbey – Evening
- Talking Heads – Love – Building on Fire
- Peter Leonard Donnelly – Red Plot
- Kavinsky – Nightcall
- Malcolm Hughes – Study No 3
- Plastic Bertrand – Ca Plane Pour Moi
- John Hoyland – Pact
- The Cure – A Forest
- Bryan Wynter – Under Mars
- Adam & The Ants – Prince Charming
- Rebecca Appleby – Sketch For The Disrupted Expectation
- Kaiser Chiefs – When All Is Quiet
The exhibition is included in the admission price of York Art Gallery