Five Minutes, Five Questions

‘Border Cantos’ cculptor, composer Guillermo Galindo

Wind, string and percussion instruments made of belongings left behind by immigrants at the border will be used to perform Guillermo Galindo’s composition “Circular Calls/Resonant Shadows” tonight at Crystal Bridges Museum.
Wind, string and percussion instruments made of belongings left behind by immigrants at the border will be used to perform Guillermo Galindo’s composition “Circular Calls/Resonant Shadows” tonight at Crystal Bridges Museum.

Artist and composer Guillermo Galindo is the creative force behind the found-object sculptures seen in "Border Cantos: Sight & Sound Explorations from the Mexican-American Border," the current temporary exhibition on display at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville. Galindo's sound-producing sculptures -- used as unconventional instruments -- provide a soundscape for the exhibition where, combined with large-scale photographs by Richard Misrach, they reveal stories of the border.

Following last week's opening of the exhibition -- where guests can see Galindo's creations as well as hear some of the scores he composed -- Galindo will tonight perform an original composition as part of a quartet. He took a few minutes to answer questions for What's Up! about the process of finding a voice for these found objects.

FAQ

‘Circular Calls/Resonant Shadows’ Quartet

With Guillermo Galindo

WHEN — 7 p.m. today

WHERE — Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville

COST — $10

INFO — 418-5700, crystalbridges.org

Q. Do you guess at or imagine the objects' histories? Does that influence the sound you build them to make?

A. Every object has its own voice. Each one is imbued with its own imaginary story. If the items are found in a particular environment, situated in a certain way, the process becomes something similar -- but not necessarily equivalent -- to crime investigation or forensic anthropology. Imagining a story pertaining to a particular setting is like putting a puzzle together. Every piece of music puts several items with several meanings together in the same way that words become sentences or a phrase.

We live in a world of sounds, and sounds have their own meanings within a certain context. The stories do not influence the sound that the object makes. It is actually the opposite: The sound that each instrument produces is an element in the story. Richard's photographs provide the imaginary scenario where the story takes place.

Q. Are the instruments tuned to play the actual notes of a scale? Or do you manipulate the objects until you find the sound you feel they're meant to create?

A. I don't force the instruments to play any sound, harmony or scale in particular. Instead, each instrument tells me the sound it wants to produce. If I play several instruments in an ensemble, I tune or adjust each of them so that they work well with each other.

In other words, unlike an atelier that builds a traditional violin or flute and molds the materials to produce a particular sound, I allow each instrument to speak with its own voice.

Q. What do you believe these belongings have to say? What do they want us to know about their past?

A. Every object has a number of meanings associated with it. The sound produced by each object works because the listener or viewer mentally connects each particular object into his or her personal experiences. In this case, the elements that constitute each object are connected to the journey of an imaginary immigrant.

Sometimes we know facts about certain instruments -- what they were used for and where and how they were found. This may influence the way we imagine the stories as well, but just knowing where these items come from makes them unique.

Q. What do you hope people feel or experience as they listen to the performance, or to your recordings in the exhibition?

A. Our job is to turn the evidence of this huge humanitarian crisis into art. We want the audience to be open and listen to the music and feel "the presence of the absence" in each piece. We want people to walk away with something to think about. It is up to each individual to make his or her own judgment.

The language of music and art is very open to interpretation. It is neither factual nor didactic. It belongs to the realm of metaphor.

Q. How do you think adding sound and music affect the viewer's connection with the themes of the exhibition?

A. Sometimes we seem to forget that sound is a very important element in our lives. It has a huge role on how we experience the world.

This exhibit is powerful because sight and sound complement each other in order to complete the full experience.

Richard's photographs provide the visuals while my music, in a way, completes a tri-dimensional experience.

-- Jocelyn Murphy

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NAN What's Up on 02/24/2017

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