Gordon Monahan: Seeing Sound
Sound Art, Performance and Music, 1978–2011
May 25 - September 22, 2012
College Art Galleries
Gordon Monahan is a sound artist, composer, pianist, musicologist, inventor, club operator, bandleader, DJ and currently also director of the Electric Eclectics festival in Meaford, Ontario. Having taken formal piano lessons as a child, by the age of twelve Monahan had launched his musical career playing keyboards in various rock bands in Ottawa. In 1974 he started a science degree at the University of Ottawa but decided to switch to a degree in music two years later. From 1976 to 1980 he studied music at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick where he was also introduced to contemporary art and theory. In 1981/82 he attended private master classes with John Cage—one of the most influential composers of the 20th century—in Toronto and New York. From 1978 onwards Monahan realised multimedia sound installations, compositions and performances, predominantly incorporating loudspeakers, videos, self-designed kinetic machine sculptures and a piano or piano wires. In 1992 Monahan went to Berlin on a DAAD artist-in-residence scholarship and remained there until 2006. The projects realised over the course of the years spent in Berlin were closely related to subcultural developments in the city. More than most artists, Monahan, often in collaboration with Laura Kikauka, took advantage of the many urban possibilities for artistic production arising after the fall of the Berlin Wall. His concepts, works and projects thus became part of Berlin’s post-reunification history.
The presentation of Seeing Sound at the RMG is one of nine exhibitions occurring across Canada and in Berlin from 2011 to 2013 with the assistance of a grant from the Museum Assistance Program of the Department of Canadian Heritage. Each gallery will present different work from Monahan’s career creating a national and international retrospective of one of Canada’s most respected sound artists. The RMG is pleased to present three works throughout the gallery spaces: Music from Nowhere (1989); Erratum Addendum (2008); A Piano Listening to Itself —Chopin Chord (2009-2010).
Organized by the College Art Galleries.
In partnership with: Blackwood Gallery, Doris McCarthy Gallery, Owens Art Gallery, Singuhr-hoergalerie Berlin, Thames Art Gallery, Robert Mclaughlin Gallery, Tom Thomson Art Gallery.
