Erdem Helvacioglu. Freedom to the Black

ARTER launches its series of sound art projects with the exhibition "FREEDOM TO THE BLACK"

ARTER’s new series of sound art projects opens with the exhibition “Freedom to the Black” by renowned Turkish composer Erdem Helvacıoğlu. Curated by Melih Fereli, the installation features Fluxus pioneer George Maciunas’s work “Piano Piece” (1970) along with Helvacıoğlu’s composition inspired by Maciunas’s very piano, which is in the Vehbi Koç Foundation Contemporary Art Collection.

During the first ever performance of Maciunas’s work, Ben Vautier, the French performance artist, nailed down all the white keys of this upright piano one by one, rendering the white keys immovable and thus leaving only the black keys functioning. “Freedom to the Black” is “an attempt to liberate ‘the black’ from all biases and prejudices,” says the exhibition’s curator and Vehbi Koç Foundation’s Culture and Arts Advisor, Melih Fereli: “Take it as a plea, or even as a protest, if you like; but do bear in mind that ‘the black’ is a powerful part of the celebration of life, just like in Erdem Helvacıoğlu’s music, and in particular his composition as part of this installation, which is filled with the riches that ‘the black’ deserves.”

The accomplished composer, sound designer, guitarist and producer Erdem Helvacıoğlu recorded the ‘sound memory’ of Maciunas’s piano to create his astonishing 10-minute composition, “Freedom to the Black”. He accomplished this over a four-day recording session at Babajim Studios, Istanbul, by using various pieces of equipment and materials—scissors, bows, earplugs, stuffed toys, drum sticks, mallets, hammers, screwdrivers, pieces of silk and wool, among many others things—to extract a wide range of sounds from the piano’s body. Helvacıoğlu used 17 microphones with diverse characteristics and in unconventional placements for the recordings.

For the spatial design of the installation at ARTER, the artist and the curator collaborated with Dr Tony Myatt, director of the Music Research Centre at The University of York. “Freedom to the Black” utilises an innovative sound system, “Ambisonic B-format”, here used for the first time in Turkey. The system is installed in a specially designed ground-floor room at ARTER and it involves sixteen speakers that surround the audience in three dimensions for full spherical sonic diffusion. The exhibition’s book includes Melih Fereli’s introductory conceptual framework along with an interview Fereli conducted with Erdem Helvacıoğlu and a new essay by music critic Tobias Fischer on Helvacıoğlu’s practice. Comprising photos from the recording session of the work and from tools used during the recording, the book also presents a CD that includes the stereo version of “Freedom to the Black”. The publication will be available at Arter throughout the exhibition.

“Freedom to the Black” inaugurates ARTER’s “Sound Art Projects” series. ARTER has added this exciting area of artistic production to its repertoire and it will continue to commission and exhibit new works in this genre.

Erdem Helvacioglu
Freedom to the Black
Kurator: Melih Fereli