It may seem odd to begin with this, but The Broad is not the type of place one would expect a concert to take place, and yet, in many regards it is uniquely suited to delivering an eye opening night of music that truly pushes boundaries. Known primarily as a modern art space, The Broad boasts an impressive collection of high profile art, including works from Basquiat and Lichtenstein, to more contemporary artists like Takashi Murakami. Music and visual art have always danced around each other, Murakami famously created the album cover for Kanye West’s Graduation (and now KIDS SEE GHOSTS), but in general music remains more accessible and less steeped in mystery than its visual counterpart. The Broad, with its “Happenings” series, hopes to bring the two worlds together in joyous harmony, and with their Fluxus-inspired night, they succeeded in every regard.
Positioned in the center plaza of the broad in front of Otium (excellent scallops there by the way), Matmos took the stage. Their music was a strange clattering of assembled noises which Matmos described as “a very fluxus set.” Eventually elements of rhythm and motion began to permeate the confusion, though inconsistently and at random intervals. The effect was enjoyable nonetheless and the eclectic crowd of gawkers were equal parts enthused and confused by the spectacle before them. The crowd was a hodgepodge of young, experience-hungry millennials and weathered art aficionados, and while one group exuded far more confidence than the other, it was clear that neither group was truly in their element given the profound absurdity of the performance.
Matmos’ second track was far more rhythmic, though it was strangely composed of an odd series of fabric tears and button snaps giving an almost hip hop quality to it. Eventually, a realization spread across the crowd as the roll of tape they were making the music with stretched out above the audience. They would later move on to a track composed almost solely from noises made by scratching and pulling at a balloon. The result, while nearly insufferable, was rather comically interesting. It would grow into one of the more interesting performances of the night as heavy bass hits flooded the plaza, balancing out the persistent high pitch of the balloon as it was torn and scraped across the microphone. Matmos closed with a collage of AC unit drones serving as a backdrop to the splattering of water against an industrial sink, again baffling the once so confident audience, proving that pushing boundaries does not belong exclusively to the Dadaist’s housed within the walls of The Broad.
To say nothing else of the performance put on by Pharmakon, it was at least startling. Bass tremors literally rattled the room as her reverberating screams echoed through the space while Pharmakon ran through the crowd like a woman possessed. She screamed her discontent violently at the surrounding onlookers often in a manner so close and confrontational that the event nearly bordered on danger music. After the first performance, much of the crowd departed either out of fear or by having their curiosity effectively sated. Yet, regardless of the feelings the audience individually engendered, it was doubtlessly one of the most emotionally engaging experiences one could witness live.
Most live performances are just that, performances, no matter how touching the songs are, there is an element of theatrics that remain ever present. That didn’t exist here. This was real. There was every emotion under the sun noisily colliding in a violent, messy heap. Margaret Chardiet didn’t give a damn if the room was empty, this was for her, you were only an obstacle. Songs would often reach a din so loud it begged you to pull your earplugs out. In the face of such intense sonic assault, the only option is to breathe it in and live in it. When it came down to it, there was no one in the room but you and her— the swirling cacophony painted a picture of profound loneliness, only pain existed, the shriek and whine of the speaker removed all exterior factors; it demanded you to look her in the eye, feeling nothing but the weight of your collective pain and emptiness.
Over in the courtyard, a significantly different event was taking shape at the behest of faUSt. Off the bat, faUSt was strange, and the juxtaposition between them and Pharmakon was almost as jarring as the previous performance. All of which is to say nothing of the comical comparisons to be made between the open air of the plaza and the suffocating panic of the Oculus Room that Chardiet had just decimated. Regardless of the comparison, faUSt’s performance was enjoyable, if a tad absurd. The strange spoken performances often overlapped into each other, and rapidly devolved into chaos, presenting a crowded street that audiences were left to decipher.
There is a perception, albeit a faulty one, that art is not for the common man. It is something ethereal that is to be discussed in braggadocios tones at gold flecked dinner parties, or fawned over by the countless critics waiting to salivate their mark onto the next Warhol. Music then, has often been the bridge between the art of high society and the experience of the common man, and what better way to exhibit that than through Fluxus? This night relied on the notion that art can be found, and often is found, in all things, from the sound of tape being pulled, the guttural yelps of a woman in agony, the glossy superflat of Takashi Murakami, to the childlike whimsy of Basquiat. Despite the differences, all these things are the same at their very core, and despite the price tags and museum walls, it is for all of us.
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