expo 2008
“nothing but what is therein contained”
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“nothing but what is therein contained,” a multi-media sound, visual, and performance installation by artist Steve Roden, takes visitors on an exploration of the memories that haunt the breathtaking third-floor spaces of Girard College Founder’s Hall. Founder’s was designed by renowned Philadelphia architect Thomas U. Walter, famous for the dome of the United States Capitol Building. Founder’s was constructed between 1833 and 1846, and commissioned by prominent businessman Stephen Girard to serve as the original classroom building for the school’s orphaned children. When it was built, Founder’s Hall was among the most ambitious and expensive architectural project in the United States. Its grand scale and rich materials contrasted starkly with the humble backgrounds of the students.
Roden’s work will be installed in four soaring former classroom spaces that have been closed to students and the public for almost a century. The title of the piece is taken from a notation on one of Walter’s earliest drawings for Founder’s Hall and invokes the contrasting ideas of simplicity and grandeur that mark the building’s history, as well as its educational function as a “blank slate” for the many students who occupied its spaces. Inspiration will be drawn from documents and objects from a 19th-century archive housed in one of the former classrooms.
This work by Roden is presented as an initial sketch and preview work-in-progress for a larger installation that will be part of Hidden City, a four-week festival aimed at rediscovering and interpreting Philadelphia’s hidden places and stories through site-based art projects that excavate the city’s rich cultural memory. Hidden City will be produced by Peregrine Arts in May/June 2009.
Sound & Video Installation with Performance by Steve Roden
This performance was made possible by the Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative, a program of the Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by The University of the Arts.
A Man In A Room Gambling
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Join us for an intimate evening of aural and visual sleight-of-hand in the 19th-century atmosphere of the historic German Society of Pennsylvania. Gavin Bryars’ 1992 ten part series for string quartet and spoken word, A Man In A Room Gambling, are beautiful feats of sonic subterfuge. Bryars created this cycle with the late sculptor Juan Muñoz, who included texts describing card tricks adapted from the legendary master S.W. Erdnase. Famous for his landmark 1902 handbook on close magic, originally titled The Magician at the Card Table, Erdnase was in life as he was on the stage: mysterious and elusive. Erdnase is an assumed name, and his true identity remains unknown to this day. Bryars’ music weaves seductively in and out of the intricate descriptions such that it is easy to loose the thread of both music and text.
Originally written as ten short pieces for the BBC Radio, A Man In A Room Gambling will be performed by renowned violinist and multi-stylist Todd Reynolds and the Todd Reynolds Situation, with a special guest appearance by Gavin Bryars on contrabass. For select vignettes, visual projections and design will be created by Bill Morrison and Laurie Olinder with direction by Bob McGrath. Some pieces will be performed with the original recordings of Juan Muñoz speaking his adaptations of S.W. Erdnase’s descriptions of expert card sharping.
Bryars and Muñoz created A Man In A Room Gambling on commission from London-based Artangel. Bryars has long envisioned creating a larger work for the theater based on Erdnase’s life and legacy, making A Man In A Room Gambling both a completed set of compositions unto themselves and studies for a larger work. These performances are presented as preview sketches for the full music-theater piece Who Was Erdnase?, which has been commissioned by Peregrine Arts to open in 2010.
Music by Gavin Bryars
Text (after S.W. Erdnase) by Juan Muñoz
Film by Bill Morrison
Visual Design by Laurie Olinder
Directed by Bob McGrath
Performed by the Todd Reynolds Situation with Gavin Bryars
Music Direction by Todd Reynolds
This program is supported by the Argosy Foundation Contemporary Music Fund and the National Endowment for the Arts.
May 6 + 7, 2008 @ 7:30pm
May 14 + 15, 2008 @ 8:00pm