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Music

Talk During This Art Opening, and You'll Get Thrown Out

A silent exhibition of musical scores encourages viewers to imagine sounds.
Loré Lixenberg and Frédéric Acquaviva. All photos by the author

Some people find it hard to believe that Frédéric Acquaviva and Loré Lixenberg actually live in their exhibition space, and it’s not hard to see why: A former doctor’s office on Sonnenallee in Berlin Neukölln, not only are the walls La Plaque Tournante covered in artwork and ephemera from Acquaviva’s personal archive, but the beds they sometimes sleep on are actually cushy white examining tables. True champions of the avant-garde, both in a historical and contemporary sense, the experimental composer and mezzo soprano performer are dedicated to showcasing forgotten artists, finding today’s vanguard, and creating novel situations, like their newest exhibition, Music for Deaf People, a presentation of musical scores, artworks, conceptual instruments, posters, and other ephemera that all explore the idea of music expressed visually. The opening night took place in complete silence, including a silent performance by Lixenberg of a series of scores like John Cage’s legendary "4:33." From 7 to 10 PM, anyone in attendance who talked would be thrown out. “But we’re not Fascists,” Acquaviva tells The Creators Project in advance of the event. “People can come back inside.”

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The day before the opening, only a few rooms are ready for exhibition, but as Acquaviva scurries from room to room of the modular space, he rattles off dozens of names of avant-garde composers from the past hundred-or-so years, seemingly unaware his interests are esoteric, making composers Karlheinz Stockhausen and John Cage, and movements like Fluxus and Lettrism, seem mainstream. In one room, he sifts through a pile of posters and pamphlets designed by Fluxus impresario George Maciunas. In another, he lifts the glass over a precious experimental instrument housed inside a book binding, called a SHOZYG, created by composer Hugh Davies. Above hangs a magnetic tape collage by composer and poet Henri Chopin (for whom Acquaviva wrote an obituary in 2008).

Karlheinz Stockhausen and Iannis Xenakis ephemera on display at Music for Deaf People.

In the foyer hangs a collection of black-and-white visual scores, like Öyvind Fahlström’s Opera, a felt-tip pen creation not designed to be played with instruments. “It’s a conceptualized sound, so the artist is saying ‘this is an opera,’ even though it’s a thing you’re looking at. It’s inviting the viewer to make their own sounds inside their head,” Lixenberg explains. The exhibition isn’t about silent music, but fluid, visual representations of sound. “It’s not silent scores,” Acquaviva explains. “Some are true scores, but you don’t hear them. You have to imagine the sound, or if you can read them, you can conceive them.”

At the opening, Lixenberg performed 13 scores. Not visual, these were “music expressed in silence and gesture,” written by, besides the legendary Cage, multidisciplinary Lettrist artists Isadore Isou and Maurice Lemaître, and Acquaviva himself, whose composition, "Exercice Spirituel," consists of “the DNA of all sounds reduced to its minimum frame length, one 24th of a second.” Before the event, the curator could only speculate about the experimental evening, not knowing how viewers would respond, but ambivalent whether they liked it or not. “It’s like a contract,” he says. “You agree to enter and interact with an idea. If you don’t like it, you can just go away. I think it’s interesting to see what happens.” During Lixenberg’s performance, the audience obeyed the contract, and only a few “just went away.”

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Works by Pauline Oliveros

The hybrid home and exhibition space is hardly repurposed—an x-ray machine and confidential medical records were only recently removed, and wayward patients still sometimes drop by. Repurposing is as typical to Berlin as experimentation, and the open-minded city has been welcoming to the Ausländer. “I think Berlin is a good place to do this, because here, when people don’t understand something, they come anyway and try to understand. Not in France,” he observes in a thick French accent.

And the pair is just as welcoming in return. Rather than charge an entry fee, La Plaque Tournante has a “create or donate” policy, inviting visitors to donate what they can or make something as entry. The owners don’t seem to mind if artists and creatives walk in without paying, but Acquaviva has something to say to the suits: “If you come, and you’re a businessman, and you download music for free on the internet, then you can donate something.”

Lixenberg performing Valie Export’s Finger Poem (1968-1973).

To document the gallery’s activities, Acquaviva and Lixenberg release a yearly magazine called CRU, an acronym for “Contemporary Radical Underground.” They use the word “magazine” loosely: Inside a plastic LP sleeve is a collection of posters, catalogue photos, CDs and texts about the previous year’s exhibitions, like last year’s DJ Verboten, an exhibition “creative records, tapes, USBs and hybrid sound books from 100 artists, sound poets, and composers.” Buyers of the magazine, which is made in limited editions, are instructed to send a selfie to Acquaviva and Lixenberg, and in return they receive an code granting them access to an online counterpart, which includes additional images, texts, and video, including webcam footage of the exhibition openings.

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Lest La Plaque Tournante risk being branded “historical,” their next show will be an exhibition of bio artist Eduardo Kac, known for his creation of a green fluorescent rabbit. “We’re growing one of his, uh, works,” says Lixenberg, referring to a plant hybridized with the artist’s DNA. “It is a bit ‘oh my god’ as it gets bigger and bigger,” she laughs.

“People say the avant-garde is over, but I don’t agree,” Lixenberg asserts. “It’s a bit arrogant to say that, because it’s something at the front of something. Just because people can’t see what it is, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”

Music for Deaf People is on display at La Plaque Tournante until August 28, by appointment only. A finissage on August 29th will break the silence with electroacoustic performances by J-B Favory and Lieutenant Caramel, after which visitors can vote for their favorite to receive a prize. Find out more information on La Plaque Tournante’s website.

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