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Iannis Xenakis: Composer, Architect, Visionary
Published on the occasion of The Drawing Center's exhibition, Iannis Composer, Architect, Visionary explores the fundamental role of drawing in the work of Greek avant-garde composer Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001). A leading figure in twentieth-century music, Xenakis was trained as a civil engineer, then became an architect and developed revolutionary designs while working with Le Corbusier. Featuring nearly 70 color plates of archival images and documents created between 1953 and 1984, this is the first publication dedicated to Xenakis s original works on paper. Included are rarely-seen hand-rendered scores, architectural drawings, conceptual renderings, pre-compositional sketches, and graphic scores. The volume, number 88 in the Drawing Papers series, also includes essays by Ivan Hewett, Sharon Kanach, Carey Lovelace, and Makhi Xenakis.
- GenresMusicNonfictionArt
Paperback
First published September 1, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
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July 17, 2022
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February 3, 2011This is an odd book. It's the catalog for an excellent show of drawings by the composer Xenakis (1922-2001).
Xenakis was many things, key among them a composer and an architect, two fields in which his documentation often involved graphically beautiful two-dimensional objects. In effect, drawings (some, later on, were computer-based, but even on those he was known to draw and color). This show was put together by The Drawing Center, a Manhattan gallery focused on, you guessed it, drawing. I saw the exhibit when it was moved to the MoCA Pacific Design Center toward the end of 2010.
So, two things are odd about the book.
The first is that of its five essays (really three, plus an intro by the curator and a brief coda from Xenakis' daughter), none really spend an enormous amount of time discussing Xenakis' drawings. The introduction comes closest, but otherwise they're really just brief career/biographical overviews, often overlapping in ways that suggest their writing wasn't really effectively coordinated. Drawing certainly comes up in all the essays -- you really can't avoid the subject, any more than you could write about Georgia O'Keeffe and never mention flowers. But none of them really wrestle with it as their primary focus.
The second is -- and I say this as a fan of white space -- many of the detailed scores are reproduced so that they take up less than half of a given page, often closer to a third. Why they weren't just turned on their side and allowed to be seen more fully is beyond me.
Xenakis was many things, key among them a composer and an architect, two fields in which his documentation often involved graphically beautiful two-dimensional objects. In effect, drawings (some, later on, were computer-based, but even on those he was known to draw and color). This show was put together by The Drawing Center, a Manhattan gallery focused on, you guessed it, drawing. I saw the exhibit when it was moved to the MoCA Pacific Design Center toward the end of 2010.
So, two things are odd about the book.
The first is that of its five essays (really three, plus an intro by the curator and a brief coda from Xenakis' daughter), none really spend an enormous amount of time discussing Xenakis' drawings. The introduction comes closest, but otherwise they're really just brief career/biographical overviews, often overlapping in ways that suggest their writing wasn't really effectively coordinated. Drawing certainly comes up in all the essays -- you really can't avoid the subject, any more than you could write about Georgia O'Keeffe and never mention flowers. But none of them really wrestle with it as their primary focus.
The second is -- and I say this as a fan of white space -- many of the detailed scores are reproduced so that they take up less than half of a given page, often closer to a third. Why they weren't just turned on their side and allowed to be seen more fully is beyond me.
August 31, 2013
"Do you realize that we're meteorites; almost as soon as we're born, we have to disappear?"
Xenakis mon amour, we have so much to talk about. When I join you in nothingness, we'll connect through music, through visions, through mathematics.
Xenakis mon amour, we have so much to talk about. When I join you in nothingness, we'll connect through music, through visions, through mathematics.
November 8, 2011
strong writing
great bio
good for imagining his work if you haven't already experienced this
lots of beautiful images of drawings, architecture, and performances
Well designed
great bio
good for imagining his work if you haven't already experienced this
lots of beautiful images of drawings, architecture, and performances
Well designed
July 30, 2011
Words about pictures that tell sounds what to do. What's not to like for a synaesthete?
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May 11, 2018780.92 X5k 2010
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews