In a wide-ranging oral history, members of the space recall its astonishing – and sometimes contentious – three years
This is an article excerpt from: https://www.frieze.com/article/orchard-gallery-oral-history-235
About the Shows
Jeff Preiss: One piece in that show – a really early work by Judith Barry [Untitled (Solo at the sink/So low at the sink), 1975] – was triggered by the water flow of our bathroom sink. Every time the faucet ran, a recording would play of her singing ‘solo at the sink’ over and over again. I loved that work so much. If I replay the melody she sings in my head, I can totally recall every aspect of being in Orchard – like a scent memory.
About the artwork mentioned:
SOLO AT THE SINK/SO LOW AT THE SINK:
Solo at the Sink/So Low at the Sink, 1974
From the series: “ How visual does an art work have to be to be an artwork?” 1974 – 1982. In trying to figure out what I could do in/with performance, I decided very consciously to explore sound as performance within a social space and as a way of producing a sense of space. The central question is : did it have to be visual to produce a visual effect? Could it be of a short duration? I called these works ‘time gestures’ after gesture drawings or ‘soundshots’ after snapshots. I saw the works in this series as questioning the nature of the art object especially how an object produces both presence and absence --- a dilemma central to conceptual art as well as phenomenology and Structualist thinking.
Performance / Installation 1974-75. First performed at SFAI, 1974. First installed, Mabuhay Gardens, 1975.
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