Laisser les sons aller où ils vont

Pierre Alferi, Silvia Bächli, Davide Balula, Basserode, Dominique Blais, Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, Pascal Broccolichi, Edith Dekyndt, Marcelline Delbecq, Jean Dupuy, Thomas Flechtner, Tom Johnson, Atsunobu Kohira, Jonas Mekas, Sophie Nys, Paul Panhuysen, Katie Paterson

The Centre National des Arts Plastiques (CNAP) and the Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain (Frac) of the Franche-Comté region jointly present the singular exhibition: Let sounds go wherever they would go, showcasing an audio and visual itinerary.
Inspired by John Cage, the exhibition assembles works in echo of the American composer’s philosophy when he wittily affirmed to be “for birds and not for the cages in which men put them” 1 and called for freedom for sounds. The exhibition takes its title from the artist’s words in an interview series published in the 1976 book For the Birds. Let sounds go wherever they would go therefore breaks down into a few major themes recurrent in John Cage’s body of work: sound, silence, chance and disinclination.

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Exhibition curators:
Sébastien Faucon, head of the CNAP fine arts collections
Sylvie Zavatta, director of the Frac Franche-Comté
 

 

In the spirit of Henry David Thoreau, this exhibition proposes a sound background that lets the visitor to a mental and interior travel; through perception and interpretation of these surrounding sounds he might imagine his own path. Indeed, Cage admired Thoreau greatly and dedicated some of his pieces to him. The presented works therefore rely on the evocative power of sounds, between hymn to Nature, found noises and the poetry of silence.
The exhibition highlights an exceptional CNAP deposit to the Frac Franche-Comté of over 80 artworks linked to the presence of sound and music in the realm of fine arts.
Let sounds go wherever they would go therefore continues the exploration of time through the prism of sound begun by the Frac in 2005 and extended in 2013 with the Ryoji Ikeda test pattern [n°4] project and Sound-Houses #1 project 2 devoted to Alvin Lucier and Tom Johnson. Likewise, the CNAP has pursued this research through acquisitions and distribution projects like the national series of events titled Diagonales, initiated in 2010.

1 Pour les oiseaux, Entretiens avec Daniel Charles, Paris, Belfond, 1976 English translation: For the Birds, John Cage in conversation with Daniel Charles, London, Marion Boya.rds, 1981

2 Sound-Houses takes its title from the entity comprised of sound archives and documentation preserved by the Frac, at the same time as its collection.