Paper Piece

Presented at SBC galerie d’art contemporain / SBC Gallery of Contemporary Art on April 17th, 2021.

In the context of:

RUIDO DE PAPEL / PAPER NOISE / BRUIT DE PAPIER AMANDA GUTIERREZ  Artist in residence

Benjamin Patterson’s Paper Piece (1960) is a text-based score that offers instructions for a group of five performers to explore the acoustic possibilities intrinsic in a multitude of paper textures. Paper Piece marks the first radical deviation that Patterson made from his classical and contemporary music sensibilities which spurred a period of intense creative activity. Though the score provides precise instructions, the piece began to take on a life of its own at Fluxus concerts, with spontaneous audience participation turning the piece into a chaotic happening. Our realization of the piece will take a step in the opposite direction, exploring more sparse and subtle possibilities with a version for three performers. As part of the Paper Noise exhibition, the live performance aims to explore the materiality of the paper, as a vehicle of collaboration and open interpretation. The piece will reuse the paper materials in the preparation of street collages and paper cut-out animations produced in previous weeks at SBC Gallerie. For the artist, Amanda Gutiérrez, it was important to include the work of the only Black composer in the Fluxus movement, Ben Patterson, who composed collaborative cutting-edge and political happenings in avant-garde music throughout his career as an artist and composer for more than four decades.”

Producer and video editing: Amanda Gutiérrez.

Performers: Stuart Jackson, Aurelio Meza, and Alejandra Jiménez