Puerto Vallarta, Mexico – The Office of Cultural Projects (Oficina de Proyectos Culturales, OPC) has the honor to present two contemporary art exhibitions – Michael Nyman: In Movement in Sala Barlow at OPC, and Señales y Sonidos de la Tierra in Sala William Hobi in Taller OPC. Both exhibitions are linked through sound, music, seismic landscapes, and images, and both Yair López and Michael Nyman will be present during the opening on October 26 from 7:00-9:00 pm.
“In Movement” will be pianist and composer Michael Nyman’s second visual arts exhibition in Puerto Vallarta. Nyman is best known for his collaborations with British independent filmmaker Peter Greenaway. Nyman subsequently worked with Patrice Leconte, Jane Campion (The Piano), Neil Jordan (The End of the Affair), Michael Winterbottom (Wonderland, The Claim, and A Cock and Bull Story), and Andrew Niccol (Gattaca). He has also written scores for a number of choreographers and has collaborated with several contemporary visual artists.
The centerpiece of “In Movement” is Nyman’s Earthquakes, a film that was formed in the shadow of War Work: 8 Songs with Film (2014-2018), in which Nyman explores his relationships with a series of earthquakes in which he has been involved in one capacity or another: as a TV spectator (Skopje, 1967 or Belice, 1968); or where friends were involved (Mexico City, 1985); where he was asked to write a soundtrack to a documentary (Armenia, 1968), and to Eisenstein’s The Disaster in Oaxaca (1931). Or where he produced a documentary (Kobe, 1995) or organized concerts to raise money to help earthquake victims (Gujerat, 2004 and Central Italy, 2016). The first and only earthquake in which he had actually been forced to participate was on September 15, 2017, in Mexico City.
Nyman’s Earthquakes uses diverse types of found, observed, and newly-filmed material that is fused with a soundtrack of music he composed for various earthquake projects. An additional 10 short videos will also be exhibited, as well as a selection of photographs.
Michael produced his first non-musical artworks in 1973: a limited edition artist’s book, Bentham and Hooker (published by Felipe Ehrenberg’s Beau Geste Press); and his first film, Love Love Love (edited by Peter Greenaway to All You Need Is Love in 1967). In 2008, he published his first photography book, Sublime (Volumina Editions).
His first major exhibition of film and photography was held at the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex, England, in 2009. His approximately 80 short films, collected under the title “Cine Opera,” have been growing regularly since 2008.
Over the past few years, Nyman has produced and exhibited a series of multi-screen moving image installations, enhancing his international reputation as a composer with his work as a filmmaker. Working in collaboration with film editor Max Pugh, Nyman has developed an impressive body of filmic works, drawing on his extensive collection of moving images and stills made over many years.
These beautiful and striking films, recorded during Michael’s travels in many countries and locations, are blended with his musical compositions to create unique and extraordinarily evocative works. Nyman’s innate eye for detail, timing, colour, form, pattern and movement, are combined with his sense of humor and acute understanding and appreciation of visual and conceptual art.
Señales y Sonidos de La Tierra
The approach for Señales y sonidos de la tierra, curated by Yair López, incorporates the use of scientific data to create musical scores, moving images, and audio of earthquakes. This project involves a high range of auditory perceptions, utilizing seismograms and scientific data, among several other geophysics techniques that can be used as sound sources.
The artists participating in this exhibition include Tito Rivas, who through sound registration immortalized his experience in the September, 2017 Mexico City earthquake; and Luciano Rodriguez Arredondo, who uses audiovisual tools to visualize data as a part of the Hipocentro Ensamble.
The musical scores that form part of the exhibition installation were generated in a concert performed on October 12th by Hipocentro Ensamble in Taller OPC. Members of the Ensamble include Darío Bernal (percussion), Ernesto Cano (woodwinds), Paloma Valencia (cello and electronics), Raymundo Macedo (guitar and electronics), Yair López (electronics), Luciano Rodríguez Arredondo (data visualization) and Homero González (sound registration). The Ensamble researched the geological history of the state of Jalisco where, in 1932, the highest magnitude earthquake ever recorded in Mexico happened.
Located at Juarez #598 at the corner of Aldama in downtown Puerto Vallarta, the Oficina de Proyectos Culturales (Office for Cultural Projects, or OPC) is an independent and non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of Contemporary Art through exhibitions, round tables, public art initiatives and educational services programs. It was created with the aim of contributing to the reflection on the contemporary sociocultural and artistic environment, with the vocation to share with the inhabitants and visitors of Puerto Vallarta. OPC works with artists, architects, curators, academics, and writers who explore ideas that shape our city, and to develop cultural programming that is firmly rooted in Puerto Vallarta, yet international in scope.