FYI, here a very cool installation by the Cuban duo called Los Carpinteros. It’s currently showing at the Sean Kelly Gallery here in NYC (details down below). Thanks to John Stevens for bringing this to our attention.
Sean Kelly is delighted to announce the opening of Rumba Muerta, an exhibition of new work by the Cuban duo Los Carpinteros. The opening will take place on Thursday, February 3rd from 6-8pm. The artists will be present.
Rumba Muerta is Los Carpinteros’ first exhibition at the gallery since their acclaimed 2008 show, Montaña Rusa. The central theme in Los Carpinteros’ work is the idea of transformation. According to the artists, that transformation sometimes occurs “in the morphology and physicality of an object and at other times in its meaning, interpretation and function.” As such, Los Carpinteros allow the titles “to reveal something, a certain form of meaning or to subvert the official meaning that people attribute to things.” The title of the new exhibition, Rumba Muerta, is meant to conjure up an imaginary world evocative of the dying notes at the end of a bittersweet song.
The exhibition will be comprised of three distinct sculptural installations. Luces del Estadio del Pueblo (People´s Stadium Lights) will be installed in the first gallery and alludes to an ambivalent symbolism sometimes associated with urban architectural structures. Its form is inspired by the PanAmerican stadium in Havana, which was built for the PanAmerican Games in 1991. The stadium was intended to be a symbol of economic strength, but instead became an indicator of the acute financial crisis that occurred during the Nineties. The harsh glare of the lights from the imposing sculptures will flood the gallery as a reminder of the perennial threat of observation in totalitarian regimes.
The second gallery will contain Cuarteto, a melted salsa band comprised of drums, congas and a standup bass. The work addresses politics and ideologies with the artists’ trademark sense of humor. The musical instruments appear to be melting into brightly colored pools on the ground, as if they had been exposed to high temperature or pressure – literally having a “meltdown” – a metaphor for the psychological meltdown of individuals in some constrained societies.
Sala de Lectura Ovalada, a ten-foot high reading room devoid of books, will be installed in the main gallery, surrounded by three large-scale drawings. The installation references ideas about confinement through the control of individuals and information. This reading room, which functions as both furniture and architecture, takes its shape from panopticon prisons, a configuration developed in the 18th century allowing a centrally placed guard to watch prisoners without them being aware that they are being observed and monitored.
Los Carpinteros are without question the most significant artists to have emerged from Cuba in the last decade. Their work is featured in the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and The Tate Modern, London, among others. Free Basket, a site-specific work commissioned by the Indianapolis Museum of Art in 2010, is permanently installed in the 100 Acres park on the museum’s grounds.
Los Carpinteros: Handwork – Constructing the World is a major monograph recently published by Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary and Walther König. At 380 pages, this is the most comprehensive book on the artists to date; it includes essays by Paulo Herkenhoff and Helen Molesworth, to name a few. The book is available for purchase through the gallery (a special edition of the book will be available as well). The artists will sign copies of the book at the opening.
Rumba Muerta is timed to coincide with this year’s Armory Show, which focuses on Latin American art.
Please contact Maureen Bray at the gallery (212.239.1181) or maureen@skny.com for more information. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Friday from 11am to 6pm and Saturday from 10am to 6pm.
Sean Kelly Gallery
528 West 29th Street
New York NY 10001
Tel 212.239.1181
Fax 212.239.2467
info@skny.com
Back in 2005 the press wrote that the long out-of-print label of classic salsa, Fania, was finally going to be made available by Emusica, the company that purchased it for a large, undisclosed, sum. I remember reading in all the papers, ranging from the Village Voice to the NY Times, that this abandoned wealth of historic music had somehow been rediscovered, and will finally be reissued, after decades of purgatory. Fania is back, they wrote.
Despite what the media wrote back then, prior to the purchase by Emusica, there were about 1,300 available reissued cd titles in the Fania catalog. The business was still headed by Fania founder Jerry Masucci and very carefully managed by Victor Gallo. Masucci passed away in 1997, but Gallo kept the machinery well-oiled. All of the Fania product was distributed via a small storefront distributer, GB Records, on 10th Avenue in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen. From that small venue salsa was distributed, in pretty darn large numbers, all over the world. Back then, anyone could get any Fania title, any time.
The Fania umbrella of labels include Tico, Cotique, Alegre, Barbaro, Inca, International, and a handful of others. Emusica, in its four or five years of ownership, put out about 300 original album reissues, mostly the expected Big Name stuff, and a big bunch of “best of…” compilations; songs culled from what seemed to be a very small pool, considering such a vast catalog was at their disposal.
It was just over a year ago that this capacious catalog of music was purchased by Codigo. The new company has a reissue program now underway, and we wish them the best of luck. They’ve done a great job with the remastering thus far. The sound is far better than the original cd series. It’s a daunting task just cataloging what’s in that vault. For the future, I, for one, am hoping for a broader scope of the catalog, a deeper appreciation of the nooks and crannies. Sure, Lavoe and Celia and Colón and Blades are great, but give me Los Kimbos, Frankie Dante, Kako, New Swing Sextette, Louie Ramirez, Tipica ‘73, Hector Rivera, Roberto y Su Nuevo Montuno …and all of those great Alegre All Stars albums that featured Charlie Palmieri and crew, replete with booze addled studio banter. That range of stuff is what gave the label nuance, its funk.
Here’s to the new old Fania. – elW
Careful readers will notice a lightly ironed re-write of the original piece. I think the first draft, written in the wee hours, came of as a bit too curmudgeonly. If any of that comes through here, it’s directed at the press who, I feel, failed in its duties on two counts: a) basic fact checking and b) not writing enough about Latin music in the first place. In 2005 the real story, in addition to a label’s rebirth, should have included the question, What’s going to happen now that all this historic stuff will no longer be available to hear? And, finally, it shouldn’t have to take a multi-million dollar sale to get the attention of the press. Fania, the Blue Note of Latin music, should be treated as such.
Catchy title, right? Ok, cheap grab.
I was having dinner with a few friends Wednesday and we were talking about la música bailable. We had agreed that one one of the pleasures of going to “live” performance is watching good dancers do what they do. Historically, if you put a bunch of people in a room at close proximity and supply a throbbing baseline, they’ll proceed to twist, touch, contort and sweat. You know, get the mojo running. Socially acceptable foreplay. It’s not rocket science
There are good dancers and there are good dancers. You know, the ones you just can’t keep from watching. This got me thinking about live shows I been to, about dancers etc., and how some bands have the innate ability to sprinkle healthy doses of pheromones onto the audience. I remember my first liveBamboleo experience. Vania Borges and Yordamis Megret (Bamboleo singers at the time) were, for me, the perfect melding of musical ability and pelvic gyration. Timba goddesses. It’s not like they showed a lot of skin or anything. In fact, pant suits were more their style. But, man, could they connect with the audience. Seeing this band perform for the first time was kind of like loosing your virginity. You’re left in awe of what just happened, musically, physically. My friend Peter Watrous, then music writer for the New York Times, rightfully called the experience an epiphany.
YouTube is like cable TV on steroids: so much stuff, so much crap. I was looking for a good Bamboleo video to illustrate my point, and it wasn’t easy. Most of what were probably good performances looked so lame: fuzzy, grainy, and with horrible sound. Here’s an ok one. It’s turns into a montage of different performances of the iconic song Yo No Me Parezco A Nadie. It’s at the 4:15 mark that, if I smoked, I would probably reach for a cigarette. – elW
The amount of enthusiastic responses to elWatusi continues to be pretty darn overwhelming. We really appreciate all of your emails and helpful suggestions. Every now and then, however, we get an email that is simply too unbelievable not to publish. Here’s one from DJ____@aol.com from right here in Brooklyn, NY:
Ummm…hate to break this to you, but most of these albums can be downloaded for FREE.
Why would I need to pay you or anyone for downloads?
Ya heard?
Somebody please tell me if this guy is joking or what?
First off, does he really believe that he’s enlightening us to the fact that illegal downloads take place? But, more to the point, does he really have so little a moral or ethical foundation that he feels the need to actually boast that he has no problem STEALING? Do I really need, in 2010, to wag a finger at this guy and enlighten him to the fact that, in addition to breaking the law, stealing music takes food off the table of artists, labels and everyone else working hard in this industry? And that doing so will simply stifle new releases and innovation? From his email address I assume the guy’s a DJ and makes his living off of the music. Oh, the irony.
Dumb all over.
I always thought it interesting that the ’70s New York salsa explosion coincided with the birth of New York punk, ie The Ramones, Television, The Dictators etc. One movement was essentially downtown, the other, uptown, more or less. The are commonalities there, with both genres returning to the pure essentials. This video, while not really punk or salsa (it has nuances of both) reminded me of that fact, and faintly suggests what might have occurred should the two fertile movements have met (midtown?). Granted, guitarist Charlie Parra knows a few more chords than Johnny Ramone ever did. But, personally, I think Lavoe would have appreciated it.
Al Santiago (1932-1996) was record producer, record store and label boss, composer, arranger, bandleader, saxophonist, pianist, school psychologist. Santiago produced 49 albums on Alegre ‘60-6, including albums by Pacheco and his Charanga, debut albums by Kako, Eddie Palmieri and Willie Rosario and, of course, the suite of legendary Alegre All Stars records.
As a tribute to Al, I thought that it would be right to revive some of his wonderful remembrances during these early days of ElWatusi, just as he did for the early days of Descarga. This piece is about none other than the legendary bandleader, composer/arranger and pianist Charlie Palmieri…(more…)
