WORKS, NOTES, AND PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE ARCHIVE OF URSULA BLOCK
George Brecht, John Cage, Henning Christiansen, Die Tödliche Doris, Arnold Dreyblatt, Maria Eichhorn, Terry Fox, Romuald Hazoumé, Rolf Julius, Milan Knížák, Christina Kubisch, Hans Peter Kuhn, Christian Marclay, Wolfgang Müller, Nam June Paik, Akio Suzuki, Miki Yui
“There once was this musical fellow/ Who’s favorite color was yellow He could play a sonata/ While he ate a tomato/ And this fellow he really could bellow” A limerick by Emmett Williams, spontaneously composed during a radio show with Ursula Block
gelbe MUSIK - Works, notes, and photographs from the archive of Ursula Block is an exhibition that pays tribute to the work and collection of Ursula Block, who from 1981 to 2014 ran the Berlin based record store and gallery gelbe MUSIK, which now lives on as the Broken Music Archive. Only a few meters down the street from Mathew Gallery gelbe MUSIK opened its doors at Schaperstr. 11 with a show dedicated to graphic scores by the contemporary avant-garde of Europe and the USA. Since then Block hosted upwards of ninety group and solo shows featuring artists and composers such as Maryanne Amacher, Henning Christiansen, Romuald Hazoumé, Christina Kubisch, Hans Peter Kuhn, Nam June Paik and Akio Suzuki. Many of these shows marked their first presentation in Germany. In addition to programming at gelbe MUSIK, Block was involved in a number of exhibitions dedicated to artist's records in a variety of locations throughout the mid-eighties. One of them was Extended Play, which she co-curated with Christian Marclay at the Emily Harvey Gallery in New York in 1988. The following year Block together with Michael Glasmeier organized the influential and crucial exhibition Broken Music at daadgalerie in Berlin, which then travelled to Grenoble, Montréal and Sydney. Its title was taken from Milan Knížák, one of Block's key figures, and was later reused for the archive. The accompanying catalogue is still considered to be one of the most extensive of its kind, and about two-thirds of the records listed are in Block’s collection. Over its 33 years in existence, gelbe MUSIK established itself internationally as a unique place for the intersections of art and music, and functioned as an important meeting ground for musicians, composers, visual artists and choreographers from all over the world. Ideas were exchanged and friendships developed. Emphasizing this aspect, the exhibition gelbe MUSIK focusses on objects, records and scores that various artists and composers explicitly dedicated to Block or her record store and gallery. Additional photographs and notes from her archive underline the often very personal and highly respectful relationships she developed with these artists. The exhibition gelbe MUSIK - Works, notes, and photographs from the archive of Ursula Block is curated by Fiona McGovern in close collaboration with Ursula Block and Justin Luke (Audio Visual Arts, New York). It will travel to New York in early 2017.
