Confusion is Art: Sonic Youth in Madrid
Photo: Martí Perarnau
The opening of the exhibition SONIC YOUTH etc: Sensational Fix could not have displayed more coherence with the band’s mythology. In the foyer of the first floor of the Centro de Arte 2 de Mayo (CA2M), based in Móstoles (Madrid), a pendulum-like electric guitar swung, slightly precariously, over the heads of the visitors. The members of the band, Lee Ranaldo and Steve Shelley, along with the Flamenco singer Enrique Morente –who claimed not to know what was going to happen in the impromptu concert until just before he arrived– turned this “welcome performance” into a stimulating and innovative fusion of rock, flamenco and classical music, the latter being represented only by a cello bow, which did not survive its wild encounter with the electric jolts of Ranaldo’s guitar.
This exhibition, which was organised on the initiative of the Dutch curator Roland Groenenboom, condenses the interaction between the New York rock band and a wide range of artists, most of whom are American and from the same generation as the members of Sonic Youth, although they cover a wide cultural spectrum, from photography to poetry, and from painting to video. Sonic Youth is not just a music band, and the dialogue it has constantly established with the various branches of contemporary art goes back to its origins as an underground noise artefact, almost thirty years ago. It is because of this that, along with the work of renowned photographers, painters and filmmakers, such as Richard Prince, Gerhard Richter and Richard Kern, the exhibition includes pieces by Thurston Moore (such as the brilliant and ingenious collage where he combines cuttings about his punk idols as a teenager with the letters he used to write to his mother), Kim Gordon (who, in addition to her career as a musician, is a widely recognised conceptual artist and gallerist, who has contributed several video installations and abstract watercolour portraits) and Lee Ranaldo, a former film student, whose loop-montage pieces function as a backdrop to several of their concerts. The fourth member of the band, Steve Shelley, who described himself as a “non-star” in the self-referential album Experimental, Jet Set, Trash and No Star, is perhaps the one who is less directly connected to the art world.
Sensational Fix includes some outstanding and original interactive installations, such as Reverse Karaoke, a small tent where visitors can play the drums and other amplified instruments over the vocals of Gordon herself, and Untitled, by Cristian Marclay, an empty room on whose floor lie the corpses of 5,000 vinyl records purchased by the artist in a shop in Barcelona.
The show also pays witness to the nature of its protagonists as devourers of pop culture, conveyed in works where Moore’s devotion to the punk poetess Patti Smith is made more than clear, as is Gordon’s passion for pop legends such as Karen Carpenter. One of the outstanding elements of the show is the interest of the band in countercultural trends, such as the Beat movement, widely represented by portraits of, and works by, such important emblematic figures as Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac. Several of these works come from the personal collection of Gordon and Moore, who form the most totemic and stable couple in the alternative rock scene, sharing their work, their travel, their interests, their punk attitude and a daughter.
Whether it is the art of rock or the rock of art, this show offers a unique opportunity to delve into the sonic universe of these ever-young adults.
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