Description
in stock early April!
“(…) The recording Duncan Terrace Piano Destruction Concert London 1966 – as Ortiz entitled it – was made at the Destruction In Art Symposium, in short DIAS, instigated by Gustav Metzger in London 1966, which was an outstanding artistic event at that time and in which numerous artists took part, including Jean Toche, Wolf Vostell, Hermann Nitsch, Juan Hidalgo, Robin Page, Otto Mühl, Henri Chopin, Al Hansen, Werner Schreib, John J. Sharkey, Ivor Davies, John Latham, Susan Cahn, John Sexton, Kurt Kren, Bryant Patterson, Peter Weibel and Yoko Ono. Ortiz has performed piano destructions since 1962, first in Brooklyn, then, from 1966 on, in front of an art audience. At the Duncan Terrace Piano Destruction Concert London 1966 it was the instrument of Jay and Fran Landesman that was sacrificed. The commentary on the concert was given by Tom Lopez.” – Herbert Kapfer
Notes from Peter Weibel:
“Three terms which made history, at least in art, at least in the present, at least for some people. I’m one of them. Swinging London, The expression from the daily yellow press ennobled by Richard Hamilton and embodied, perhaps even immortalised, in his graphic prints, made a deep impression the small Viennese avant-garde group (G. Brus, K. Kren, O. Muehl, H. Nitsch, P. Weibel) in 1966. In Vienna we were not invited to any parties, in fact we were even uninvited on such occasions as Fasching (Carnival) in the Viennese Secession. In London we were guests of honour at parties in palaces and cellars. The press in Vienna shunned us, the London press sought us out. Girls called down to us in the street at midnight from open windows asking to come up for a dance. Music was playing day and night, everywhere. The clothes on the street were as eccentric as they were pseud in Vienna. We found the life there idyllic; avant-garde art, otherwise ostracized, was celebrated. Brus wrote home, prematurely, that he would soon be a millionaire.
I was 22, the youngest in relation to Vostell and Metzger, I felt the competition between us, the craving for media attention, the strategies of overstatement, but also the sense of new departures, of adventure, of common interests. A revolutionary festival which accorded with the historical period and was appropriately located geopolitically in London. DIAS was not possible in New York, too popular, nor in Paris, too scented, it could only take place in London and only in 1966, the eve of the insurrection.”
Also included, unfortunately, is a completely unnecessary remix of the original recording by an unrelated contemporary project. But the release is worth getting for the Piano Destrucution action.
