SABINE GROSCHUP: CAGE WITHOUT CAGE & MC and the poodle’s charm
From 25 August to 25 October, Norrlandsoperan presents works by Vienna-based artist, filmmaker and author Sabine Groschup under the title »CAGE WITHOUT CAGE«. The multimedia show in the Vita kuben exhibition space includes film, conceptual art, photography, animation, installation, poetry, textile and sound art — and extends into the foyer of the opera house with an expansive installation dedicated to Maria Callas to mark her 100th birthday.
At the centre of the exhibition by Sabine Groschup, a student of the major Austrian artist Maria Lassnig, is her work complex on John Cage’s »ORGAN2/ASLSP« in the St. Burchardi Church in Halberstadt, Germany. The work complex is also an ongoing work in progress that began 20 years ago. At that time, filming commenced on Groschup’s experimental film »(JC{639}«, featuring impressive images and a grandiose sound design, and which documents the globally acclaimed 639-year performance (2001-2640) of Cage’s composition. In this film, Groschup employs a trope that is probably unique in the medium of film — and itself, a direct reference to John Cage’s work: She introduces a random element into the dramatological sequence of her film about the piece, which is itself to be played “as slowly as possible” (ASLSP = As SLow aS Possible).
»(JC{639})« celebrated its world premiere in 2012, to mark the John Cage centenary, and has been featured in major exhibitions about the artist of the century. Since then, the film has taken a unique approach to sharing with viewers the cross-generational performance in Halberstadt. At the same time, Groschup is working on the realisation of a total of 89 variations of the film, analogous to the 89 notes in Cage’s composition. Random operations by selected guests with reference to John Cage form the basis for a stream of new re-edited variations of the same filmic source material, structured by Groschup into 89 clips; or public random drawings, in the context of exhibitions of her Cage work complex (2013 Halberstadt; 2016 Innsbruck; 2022 Augsburg).
The fourth public random operation realised as part of the exhibition opening of »CAGE WITHOUT CAGE«, on 24 August 2024 in Umeå, is the 73rd film variation of »(JC{639})«. This is documented in the exhibition with the original six-part drawing protocol and the 89 clip cards, randomly arranged and signed by 89 people. Film variation #1, in which the Czech curator and Cage expert Jozef Cseres’ random operation from 2012 can be seen as a projection.
Groschup’s five-part work on canvas »My ORGAN2/ASLSP — A work in progress for the next…« is a work in progress in the collection of the John Cage Organ Foundation (2013). The artist’s copy of the work from 2022 is on display in Umeå, where it visualises the dimensions of the John Cage Organ Art Project Halberstadt using the means of Fine Art. The artist prints the notation, previously digitally freed of every note, in double size on canvas and embroiders the parts of the composition performed since 2001 into it by hand, in accordance with changes in sound in Halberstadt. This is Groschup’s own version of a cross-generational project that can only be completed with participation.
With »My ORGAN2/ASLSP : Soundpic Edition #1-639« (started in 2016), Groschup takes the reverse approach. Once again, she invites fellow artists, friends and people interested in her emerging visual work to participate in the creation of their personal sound year by means of a random draw. She embroidered the year on a canvas with a photograph of St. Burchardi’s Church and also embroidered the title of the score »ORGAN2/ASLSP«, the composer’s name, John Cage, the name of the random operant and, last but not least, the excerpt from the score that will be heard in the Halberstadt performance in that respective year. Groschup’s concept goes as follows: If all the years are assigned to one person and the photo canvases are embroidered by her, the 639 »Soundpics« installed in chronological order represent the entire score — extended by the impressive sound space of St. Burchardi’s Church, and captured on just as many different photographs, all taken by Groschup. More than 200 years have already passed, and Groschup will soon have produced 100 works. Ten such »Soundpics« produced for Umeå will be on public display for the first time in this exhibition.
In 2016, Groschup realised an installation entitled »My ASLSP : John Cage’s “As Slow as Possible” for Piano or Organ Solo« with a Yamaha Disklavier for her solo exhibition at the Tyrolean State Museum Ferdinandeum. The aim of the work is to spotlight the piece »ASLSP«, originally composed by John Cage in 1985 for solo piano and which was transposed for organ by Cage in 1987 at the request of the important German organist Gerd Zacher, after »ORGAN2/ASLSP« had become world-famous through the Cage project in Halberstadt. »ASLSP« can be heard and experienced in the exhibition in a version for disklavier specially recorded by the Austrian pianist Manon-Liu Winter in Vienna in 2016.
The show is rounded off by several plant installations, combined with photographs from Cage’s apartment in Manhattan, New York. As titles for this very personal reminiscence of Cage, Sabine Groschup uses quotations from Cage that express his passion for botany. In the words of plant-lover Groschup: “The quotes could also have come from me.”
The title of Sabine Groschup’s »CAGE WITHOUT CAGE« is a variation on Nam June Paik’s famous video installation »Cage in Cage« (1999). It is also the first line of her handkerchief poem dedicated to John Cage (TGg #20), which adorns the exhibition space as a hand-stitched original in the format of a mesostichon.
»CAGE WITHOUT CAGE« is the Innsbruck-born artist’s first solo exhibition in Sweden.
Sabine Groschup (born 1959 in Innsbruck, Austria) lives and works as a visual artist, filmmaker and author in Vienna. She studied architecture and archaeology at the University of Innsbruck, Experimental Design (painting and animated film) at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (under Maria Lassnig) and at the Düsseldorf Art Academy (under Nam June Paik), as well as Ethnology at the University of Vienna. Since the 1980s, Groschup has continuously expanded her media vocabulary, which now includes photography, textile works and poetry in addition to animation, painting, video and sound installations.
Vita kuben //
Norrlandsoperan, Umeå, Sweden
Curated by Georg Weckwerth, invited by Helena Wikström
25.8.–25.10.2024
