Syndicate: Call for Papers: The Art of David Tudor, May 17-19, 2001

[Andreas Broeckmann <abroeck@v2.nl>]

Call for Papers

The Art of David Tudor:
Indeterminacy and Performance in Postwar Culture
May 17-19, 2001, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California

The Getty Research Institute invites submissions for a symposium examining
the career of David Tudor and his impact on contemporary art, dance, and
music.  As the repository for the Tudor archive and important related
collections on contemporary art, the Research Institute is seeking
presentations that help to provide a fuller understanding of one or more of
the following:

(1)	Tudor's connections to visual artists and composers: From the
beginning of his career as a pianist, Tudor's status exceeded that of
"performer".  He was a kind of ambassador who brought together wildly
different musical elements in the United States and Europe: the Second
Viennese School, American experimentalism, indeterminacy, Fluxus.  Tudor's
performance and composition inspired the careers of artists working in
minimalism and conceptual art, video, sound sculpture, and performance.
How did he set the stage for avant-garde visual and musical practices?

(2) Tudor and the "theatre piece":   Tudor introduced "theatre as an
independent         concept" to the circle surrounding John Cage, where it
played a crucial role in the evolution of the aesthetics of indeterminacy.
His creation with Cage of the prototype "happening" at Black Mountain
College in 1952 marked an early instance of collaborative performance.
Tudor's electronic compositions are overtly theatrical, comprised of
tactile sounds in space, lighting and choreography.  What was his role in
the evolution of multi-media performance, pedestrian movement in dance, and
the "theatre piece" in music?

(3)	The concept of "realization":  As a performer, Tudor's work with
indeterminate notations evolved into a distinct activity of 'realization',
in which he transformed abstract, graphic notations into concrete scores.
What is the relation between Tudor's concept of 'realization' and
contemporary practices in the visual arts?  What are the implications for
artworks defined by prescription and concept, and for the dematerialization
of the art object?

(4)  Technology and Tudor's composition: Tudor's work with electronics was

profoundly personal; hence, his basic techniques are not well understood.
What are the shapes and structures of his compositions?  Which of them can
be performed or reconstructed?  Is the attempt at reconstruction even
appropriate?  Can we contextualize this last question within debates about
reconstructing twentieth-century works of art?

Proposals, not exceeding two double-spaced pages, accompanied by a brief
curriculum vitae listing relevant research and publications, should be sent
by May 1, 2000 or by September 1, 2000 to:

Dr. Nancy Perloff
Getty Research Institute
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles, CA  90049-1688
Fax: (310) 440-7779

For further information on the archival collections of the Getty Research
Institute, please consult the Research Library home page,
http://www.getty.edu/gri/research/main.htm.  On this page, the link
entitled "Special Collections and Visual Resources Finding Aids" links you
to a list of archival collections with finding aids of contents.  The list
includes the David Tudor Papers, the archives of Experiments in Art and
Technology, the Mary Caroline Richards Papers, the Jean Brown Fluxus
Archive, the Carolee Schneemann Performance Archive, the Dick Higgins
Papers.

We invite applicants to apply for a Library Research Grant in order to come
study pertinent collections.  For further information, please consult
www.getty.edu/gri/research/grants.htm.  Grants awarded for research
relating to the Tudor Symposium have a separate deadline of April 1, 2000.
(but receiving a grant does not guarantee an accepted paper)



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