Nothin' but Working Phill Niblock, a ... - Musée de l'Elysée

Nothin’ but Working
Phill Niblock, a Retrospective
Exhibition from 30 January to 12 May 2013
Press pack

Phill Niblock
Press pack
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Sommaire
Nothin’ but Working
Phill Niblock, a retrospective
Exposition From 30 du January 30 janvier to 2013 12 au May 12 mai 2013
Contents
• Gi l l e s C a r o n , le c onflit intérieur
3
6
Exposition à venir
Presentation • Au Musée de of l’Elysée the retrospective 53
The exhibition at Circuit
Le Musée de l’Elysée
4
6
Dates & series and exhibition spaces 5
Images Photographies available de for presse the press 76
Practical information 7
Informations pratiques 9
Contact presse
Julie Maillard
+41 ( 0 ) 21 316 99 27
julie.maillard@vd.ch
Press Conference
Tuesday 29 January 2013 at 10am
Opening
Tuesday 29 January 2013 at 6pm
Upon a proposal by the Contemporary Art Center Circuit,
the exhibition Nothin’ but Working – Phill Niblock, a Retrospective
is presented simultaneously at the Musée de l’Elysée and Circuit.
Press Contact
Julie Maillard
+41 ( 0 ) 21 316 99 27
julie.maillard@vd.ch
Press contact Circuit
François Kohler
+41 (0) 21 601 41 70
contact@circuit.li
All images © Phill Niblock

Phill Niblock
Press pack
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Nothin’ but Working
Phill Niblock, a Retrospective
From 30 January to 12 May 2013
Phill Niblock has produced, for over more than fifty years, a
multidisciplinary work. His “Intermedia Art” features a combination
of minimalist music, conceptual art, structural cinema, systematic
or even political art, and strives to transform our perception and
experience of time.
Upon a proposal by Circuit, the photographs, films, installations
and all his recorded music are brought together for the first time
in a retrospective exhibition dedicated to Phill Niblock’s entire
artistic endeavour. This exhibition by Mathieu Copeland is
presented simultaneously at the Contemporary Art Center
Circuit and at the Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne.
Admittedly one of the greatest experimental composers of our
time, Phill Niblock initiates his career as a photographer and film
director. Born in 1933 in Indianapolis, a jazz afficionado, he settles
in New York in 1958. Niblock starts photography in 1960,
specializing in portraits of jazz musicians such as Charles Mingus,
Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington, whom he frequently follows to
recording sessions and concerts. In the mid-60s, he shifts from
photography to film, and encouraged by Elaine Summers, choreographer
and founder of the Experimental Intermedia, he starts
realising films for dancers and choreographers at the Judson
Church Theatre, including Yvonne Rainer and Meredith Monk.
From 1968 on, Niblock focuses on music and composes his first
pieces, which - according to the artist - should be listened to at
loud volume in order to explore their overtones.
Since the mid-60s, his analogue photographic work explores
New York’s architecture and urban planning. The sequencing and
layout of his images offer a mapping of the location and object
photographed, such as the abandoned buildings of Welfare Island
(today Roosevelt Island) in 1966, the areas fallen into disuse in the
South Bronx in 1979, or the facades of SoHo Broadway district in
1988. Starting in 1966, Niblock engages in a reflection about the
projection of moving images through a series of films and slideshows.
Produced between 1966 and 1969, Six Films, a series of
short films with sound realized with 16 mm film, heralds his
experimental method through portraits of artists and musicians
such as Sun Ra and Max Neuhaus.
Starting in 1968, the artist begins experimenting a combination of
his visual productions with his musical scores in order to create
architectural and environmental compositions with sound.
Recreated by the artist at the Musée de l’Elysée for the first time
since its last presentation in 1972, the Environments series
extracts through images the reality of different surroundings,
all the while generating a dense and intense temporary environment
of projected images, music and movements throughout
the museum’s space.
Exhibition curator
• An exhibition by Mathieu Copeland, upon a proposal
by the Contemporary Art Center Circuit
• Coordinated for the Musée de l’Elysée by Lydia Dorner
From the series Buildings along SoHo Broadway, 1988
From the series Underground Gallery Exhibition, 1966
© Phill Niblock

Phill Niblock
Press pack
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Exhibition at the Contemporary
Art Center Circuit
Presented for the first time in its entirety, re-edited and remastered
by the artist for the retrospective, the series of films The Movement
of People Working portray human labour in its most elementary
form. Filmed on 16mm colour film, and later on video, in locations
including Peru, Mexico, Hungary, Hong Kong, the Arctic, Brazil,
Lesotho, Portugal, Sumatra, China and Japan – with more than
25 hours of film footage, The Movement of People Working focuses
on work as a choreography of movements and gestures, dignifying
the mechanical yet natural repetition of labourers’ actions.
Phill Niblock says of these that The Movement of People Working
«came out of necessity because I was doing music performances
with live dancers, and it was too cumbersome and expensive to
tour with so many people. So I started doing those films that
I could project when performing».
These films are accompanied by the whole corpus of Niblock’s
slowly evolving, harmonically minimalist music, realised between
1968 and 2011. The sound level of these compositions offers a
visceral experience of the long drones and inhabits the ringing,
beating overtones. These scores, presented in the exhibition as
photostats realized for his personal exhibition at London’s ICA
in 1982, are the composer’s mixing instructions and are not used
by the musician during the performance. While moving through
space, he plays with the recorded material, sometimes creating
tonalities that coincide with the recording or, on the contrary, that
produce dissonances. The result is a constant movement of beat,
rhythm and pulsation, as well as changing and continuous harmonics
during his own motion through space. The layering of tones
echoes the repetitions of the workers’ actions; the evolution of the
films on each screen (changing throughout the day), combined with
a program that randomly plays back different music pieces, results
in a constant renewal of forms, continuously offering an exhibition
of new juxtapositions of sound and image.
The Movement of People Working offers a strong social and
political comment, as highlighted by the title and represented
by the closeness with the workers. In this, the series of film echoes
the work of several filmmakers including Jean Luc Godard or Chris
Marker who as from 1967 gave workers the cameras and informed
them of cinematic techniques so that they could actually make
their own films. In a fascinating turn of events, rather than doing
fictional or pure documentary film, some workers formed the
Groupes Medvekine and decided to film themselves working.
The Movement of People Working, 1973 - 1991 (Film stills)
© Phill Niblock

Phill Niblock
Press pack
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Important dates and major works
Exhibition sites
1933: Birth in Indianapolis
1958: Settles in New York
1961-1964: Realizes a series of portraits of jazz musicians
1966: Presents his first photography exhibition at the Underground
Gallery, New York
1966: Realizes films for dancers and choreographers of the Judson
Church Theater in New York, including
Elaine Summers, Yvonne Rainer, Meredith Monk, Tina Croll, Carolee
Schneemann, and Lucinda Childs
1966-1969: Six Films
1968-1971: Environments
1973-1991: The Movement of People Working
1979: Streetcorners in the South Bronx
1982: Scores Photostats
1984: Boatyards
1985: Becomes director of the Experimental Intermedia Foundation
1985-1992: Anecdotes from Childhood
1985-1992: Light Patterns
1986-1989: China 88, 87, 86 & Japan 89
1988: Buildings along SoHo Broadway
2011: N + M and Nomis
2012: Working Title, an anthology of Phill Niblock’s work edited by
Yvan Etienne, published by Presses du Réel
2012: Phill Niblock revisits the Environments
Exhibited at Circuit + Musée de l’Elysée
Exhibited at the Musée de l’Elysée
Exhibited at the Musée de l’Elysée
Exhibited at the Musée de l’Elysée
Exhibited at Circuit
Exhibited at the Musée de l’Elysée
Exhibited at Circuit
Exhibited at the Musée de l’Elysée
Exhibited at the Musée de l’Elysée
Exhibited at the Musée de l’Elysée
Exhibited at Circuit + Musée de l’Elysée
Exhibited at the Musée de l’Elysée
Exhibited at the Musée de l’Elysée
Exhibited at the Musée de l’Elysée

Phill Niblock
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The following images are available for the press.
The use of these images is limited to the promotion
of the exhibition presented at the Musée de l’Elysée.
They must not be altered in any way and must mention
the whole caption as well as the copyright.
To download the images:
ftp://84.16.80.83/web/press/Phill_Niblock
user : press
password : 1006_mel_13
From the series Buildings Along SoHo Broadway, 1988 © Phill Niblock
Presented at the Musée de l’Elysée
From the series Streetcorners in the South Bronx, 1979 © Phill Niblock
Presented at the Musée de l’Elysée
From the series Underground Gallery Exhibition, 1966 © Phill Niblock
Presented at the Musée de l’Elysée
Japan89, 1989 © Phill Niblock
Presented at Circuit
The Movement of People Working, 1973 - 1991 (Film Stills) © Phill Niblock
Presented at Circuit
Duke Ellington in control booth, 1962 © Phill Niblock
Presented at Circuit

Phill Niblock
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Practical Information
Musée de l’Elysée
18, avenue de l’Elysée
CH - 1014 Lausanne
T + 41 (0) 21 316 99 11
F + 41 (0) 21 316 99 12
www.elysee.ch
Opening hours
Tue-Sun, 11am - 6pm
Closed Monday, except for bank holidays
Admission fee
Adults CHF 8.00
AVS CHF 6.00
Students / Apprentices / AC / AI CHF 4.00
Free entry for those under 16
Free entry on the first Saturday of the month
Contemporary Art Center Circuit
Access via Quai Jurigoz
CH – 1001 Lausanne
T + 41 (0) 21 601 41 70
F + 41 (0) 21 601 41 70
http://www.circuit.li/
Opening hours
Thu-Fri-Sa from 2 to 6pm
and by appointment
Admission fee
Free admission