Sounds and sights on Friday night . . . The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena—a treasure chest of classic and contemporary, old and new

Detail from Picasso's Woman with a Book

Last Friday night I visited the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. People had urged me to go there, though I had no idea what was so special about it until now. What drew me there was a free concert of John Cage's "Cartridge Music" to be performed by two California artist/musicians, Steve Roden and Mark Trayle. Having seen and heard Cage back in the 60s at Bennington College, I knew I was in for a sound experience that would be well outside the norm for music. In addition, Cage's first foray into the visual arts was on display, Not Wanting to Say Anything About Marcel: An Artwork by John Cage. If you go to the museum link you'll see it.

What I hadn't expected, however, was the staggering collection of art treasures housed in the museum which was renovated under the genius of Gehry about 20 years ago.

In addition to the numerous Picasso's, Degas', VanGogh's, and work going back to the middle ages, as well as an entire floor dedicated to Asian art (I didn't make it there on this visit though I plan to return as soon as possible), a Sculpture Garden hosts work by Henri Moore, Maillol, and others that lead the viewer through a serpentine walk that encircles a lily pond. The museum's proximity to major freeways invites a constant, though not unpleasant hum of LA white noise in contrast to the tranquility of the gardens.

 

 

Henri Moore

Maillol

The "concert" was a continuous immersion into sounds created by the convergence of sensitive microphones and multiple speakers that were set up to capture sound shapes made by the manipulation of unlikely objects like tin cans, springs, nails, drinking straws, feathers, and wires to name a few. The only object that could be recognized as a traditional musical instrument was a rosin bow that one would draw over a stringed instrument. This bow was drawn across wires, mike stands, and flesh to add to the sound textures. As I entered the lobby at the concert's conclusion, I found myself enchanted by the richness of all the ambient noise around me: voices, doors creaking, birds outside, air passing through air ducts, even the toilet flushing in the ladies room, and the sound of my own steps.

As Mark Trayle pulled a violin bow across metal with microphone attached, the auditorium filled with a symphony of sounds borne of an artist's interaction with them and technology.

A tin can, some seemingly random wires all add to the texture of the Cage composition once picked up on microphones and projected into the audience. Here Steve Roden uses the rosin bow to "play" random wires and a tin can. When I left the performance I had a new appreciation for all the ambient sounds that surrounded me.