Tony Conrad | |
|---|---|
 Tony Conrad at the DeStijl/Freedom From Festival inMinneapolis-Saint Paul in October 2003. | |
| Born | Anthony Schmalz Conrad[1] (1940-03-07)March 7, 1940 |
| Died | April 9, 2016(2016-04-09) (aged 76) Cheektowaga,New York, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Harvard University |
| Occupation(s) | Filmmaker, musician, composer |
| Movement | Minimalism,drone music,structural film |
| Musical career | |
| Instruments | Violin |
| Years active | 1962–2016 |
| Labels | Table of the Elements, Caroline |
Musical artist | |
| Website | Tonyconrad.net |
Anthony Schmalz Conrad (March 7, 1940 – April 9, 2016) was an Americanvideo artist,experimental filmmaker, musician, composer, sound artist, teacher, and writer. Active in a variety of media since the early 1960s, he was a pioneer of bothdrone music andstructural film.[2] As a musician, he was an important figure in the New Yorkminimalist scene of the 1960s, during which time he performed as part of theTheatre of Eternal Music (along withJohn Cale,La Monte Young,Marian Zazeela,Terry Riley, and others).[3] He became recognized as a filmmaker for his 1966 filmThe Flicker. He performed and collaborated with a wide range of artists over the course of his career.
Conrad was born inConcord, New Hampshire, to Mary Elizabeth Parfitt and Arthur Emil Conrad, and raised inBaldwin, Maryland andNorthern Virginia.[1] His father worked withEverett Warner during World War II in designingdazzle camouflage for theUnited States Navy.[4] Conrad's high school violin lessons with symphony violist Ronald Knudsen introduced him tojust intonation anddouble stop playing.[5] After briefly studying violin atBaltimore'sPeabody Conservatory, Conrad graduated fromHarvard University in 1962 with a degree in mathematics.[1][6] While studying at Harvard, Conrad was exposed to the ideas of experimental composersJohn Cage andKarlheinz Stockhausen. After working as a computer programmer, Conrad became involved inNew York City's avant-garde arts scene.[1]
After moving to New York, Conrad became an early member ofLa Monte Young'sTheatre of Eternal Music alongsideJohn Cale,Angus MacLise, andMarian Zazeela.[7] The Theatre of Eternal Music utilizedjust intonation anddrones to produce what the group called "dream music"; Conrad's mathematical knowledge contributed to the Theatre's systematization of just intervals, and he also encouraged the ensemble to adopt electronic amplification.[1][8] Conrad would later leave the Theatre in a dispute over Young's attempt to assert more deliberate compositional influence over their performances and refusal to grant him or Cale shared credit for the ensemble's music or access to its recordings, and in 1990 protested a concert by his former bandleader with a manifesto titled "Composer La Monte Young Does Not Understand 'His' Work" outlining his grievances and accusing Young of "orientalism and [a] romanticizedpersonality cult mark[ing] him among the most regressive of contemporary artists."[9]
In 1963, he joined his former Harvard classmate andFluxus associateHenry Flynt in hisanti-art demonstrations against "elitist" New York cultural institutions.[10]
In 1964, Conrad and Cale were recruited byPickwick Records to serve as a backing band, The Primitives, to perform theLou Reed-penned single "The Ostrich"/"Sneaky Pete". Conrad and Cale played guitar and bass,Walter de Maria played percussion, and Reed sang. Conrad and Cale's instruments were tuned to Reed's "Ostrich tuning", with every string the samepitch class. After the Primitives disbanded, Cale and Reed formedThe Velvet Underground.[11] Conrad was indirectly responsible for the name of The Velvet Underground, although he was never a member of the group; after moving into Conrad's old apartment onLudlow Street in New York City, Reed and Cale found a copy ofThe Velvet Underground which Conrad had left in the apartment, and took its name for the band.[12]
Conrad's first musical release under his own name was a collaboration withFaust,Outside the Dream Syndicate, released byCaroline in 1973. This remains his best known musical work and is considered a classic ofminimalist music anddrone music.[1][13]
One of Conrad's early films wasComing Attractions, made with his then-partnerBeverly Grant, which was released in 1970. This film led indirectly to the founding of Syntonic Research and theEnvironments series of natural sound recordings.[1] Grant and Conrad further worked on two films:Straight and Narrow (1970) andFour Square (1971).
Yellow Movies was a project of Conrad's in 1973 of twenty "movies" consisting of rectangular borders painted in black house paint on large pieces of photographic paper, effectively framing each sizable expanse of emulsion whereby the physical aging and transformation of the emulsion itself would constitute a definitively slow-motion moving picture over such an extended period of time.[14]
Conrad began to work in video and performance in the 1970s as a professor atAntioch College, where he replaced the filmmakerPaul Sharits. In 1976, Conrad joined the faculty at the Center forMedia Studies at theUniversity at Buffalo.[15] While in Buffalo, Conrad was part of a scene that included Sharits, as well asHollis Frampton,Steina and Woody Vasulka,Peter Weibel, James Blue, Cathy Steffan and Gerald O'Grady. Their practices in film, video, performance, and other forms were documented in the 2008 bookBuffalo Heads: Media Study, Media Practice, Media Pioneers, 1973–1990, edited by Vasulka and Weibel.[16]
In the mid-1970s, Conrad began performing film. WithSukiyaki Film he decided that the film should be prepared immediately before viewing.Sukiyaki was chosen as the paradigm for the work because it is a dish often cooked immediately before eating, in front of the diners. Conrad cooked sukiyaki in front of an audience: egg, meat, vegetables, and16mm film; and literally "projected" onto the screen behind him.[17]
Table of the Elements released a number of Conrad's archival recordings in the 1990s and 2000s, includingFour Violins (1964),[1]Fantastic Glissando, andJoan of Arc.[18]Slapping Pythagoras, an album of new music commissioned by Table of the Elements, was recorded withJim O'Rourke andSteve Albini atElectrical Audio and released in 1995.[19]Early Minimalism, Vol. 1, released in 1997, was an attempt to reconstruct the sound of Theatre of Eternal Music recordings withheld by La Monte Young.[20] He also issued two archival CDs featuring the work of late New York filmmakerJack Smith, with whom he was associated in the 1960s.[21]
Conrad collaborated with artists such asCharlemagne Palestine,[22]Genesis P-Orridge,Keiji Haino,Jim O'Rourke,David Grubbs,C Spencer Yeh, Tovah Olson, MV Carbon, and numerous others.[23] Conrad was chosen byAnimal Collective to perform at theAll Tomorrow's Parties festival that they curated in May 2011.[24] In 2012 Conrad was part of the line-up of the touring avant-garde festivalSonic Protest that took place in five cities in France.[25] In 2013 Conrad visitedGenoa to open his first solo exhibition in Italy.[26]
.jpg)
Conrad's work has been shown at many museums including theMuseum of Modern Art,MoMA PS1, and theWhitney Museum of American Art in New York City; theWalker Art Center in Minneapolis; theLouvre in Paris; theMuseum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles; and many others.[27] Specifically, his filmThe Flicker was included in theWhitney Museum of American Art's exhibition,The American Century; he participated in the 2006Whitney Biennial; and one of hisYellow Paintings was featured in the museum's 2015–2016 exhibition "Collected byThea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner."[28]
Conrad's artwork is represented by Greene Naftali Gallery in New York City,[29] and byGalerie Buchholz in Germany.[30]
Conrad had been a faculty member in the State University of New York at Buffalo since 1976, and continued to teach there in the Department of Media Study until his death.[6][31] Several of his students at Buffalo formed the indie rock bandMercury Rev in 1989.[32]
Conrad died at a hospice inCheektowaga, New York, on April 9, 2016, after receiving treatment for prostate cancer.[6][33]
The Tony Conrad estate is represented byGreene Naftali,New York,[34] andGalerie Bucholz,Cologne.[35]
{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal= (help)
