News

18 November, 11-20 November, 2011. Musicians from one of the world’s elite contemporary music ensembles - London sinfonietta - strike a creative dialogue with radical composer/pianist/improviser Matthew Bourne and Lithuanian composer/percussionist Vladimir Tarasov, exploring the boundaries between written and unwritten music. Sound Games, an exhibition of Vladimir Tarasov’ video works will also be on show during the festival at the foyer of the Queen Elisabeth Hall, Southbank.

According to art critic Tautvydas Bajarkevičius, one can consider Vladimir Tarasov as the pioneer of sound art in Lithuania if by that we understand it as a genre using the medium of sound in the context of contemporary visual art. He is a world figure on the international art scene and in jazz, linked in Lithuania from the 1970s with the spirit of multiculturalism (also reflected in the proposed project) – starting with his activities on the jazz scene, associated with breaking free of the constraints of the Soviet period, finishing with his links with Russian underground artists, and later with a whole host of world-class musical collaborative work and active involvement in the international contemporary art scene.

Already known as a great jazz musician, a member of the legendary Ganelin, Tarasov, Chekasin Trio, at the beginning of the 1980s Vladimir Tarasov began taking an interest in performance art and art action influenced by the Fluxus movement and the Moscow conceptualists with whom Vladimir maintained a close relationship.

In the 1980s Vladimir Tarasov was one of the most active intermediaries between the Lithuanian non-conformist art scene and the Moscow conceptualists active at that time. In the 1990s Vladimir together with Ilya Kabakov, one of the most prominent stars of this artistic movement, created several memorable installations: The Red Wagon, Incident in a Museum: Water Music, and A Concert for Flies.

It is from this period that Vladimir has been developing his own language of artistic expression taking in spatial, sculptural sound and visual installations, video work, at the same time as continuing his own musical activities as a world-acclaimed jazz drummer and percussionist.

Both of Vladimir Tarasov’s areas of creativity complement one another perfectly. The visual expression of his visual works is not overloaded, but precisely organised, controlled, and often what is particularly important in them is their materiality with all of their qualities, organic, acoustic and related to form. The economical visual expression predetermines the meditative relationship of the viewer with the work and creates a feeling of “transparent intangibility”.

More information about the artist: http://www.vladimirtarasov.com/

Video excerpt from Tarasov’s video work “Sixties”:

Vladimir Tarasov and London sinfonietta: 
November 18, 7.45pm, Purcell Room, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX. Tickets: £12+bkg, to book online:
http://ticketing.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/music/classical/tickets/london-sinfonietta-61277

Vladimir Tarasov's Sound Games:
November 11-20 d., Foyer of the Queen Elisabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX. Open every day two hours prior the concert.