Episode 7: ON AIR with Art & Language and the Red Krayola
23 May 2019
In this episode, Art & Language (Michael Baldwin and Mel Ramsden) talk with Lisson Gallery’s Hana Noorali and Ossian Ward about its pioneering 40-year collaboration with the Red Krayola, a proto-punk band founded in Houston by Mayo Thompson. They discuss the largely improvised performances, the themes that went into these recordings – covering everything from conceptual art and activism to politics and philosophical thought – as well as how the first songs were written in residency at Robert Rauschenberg’s studio on Captiva Island, Florida, but only after Michael was detained by the CIA for carrying sensitive communist propaganda.
Combining text from these tracts, as well as from their Index 01, exhibited at Documenta 5 in Kassel in 1972, Art & Language provided lyrics to be sung or chanted by, among others, Michael Baldwin, Ian Burn, Kathryn Bigelow, Charles Harrison, Pauline Harrison, Sandra Harrison, Christine Kozlov, Lynn Lemaster, Philip Pilkington, Mel Ramsden and Mayo Thompson, supplemented by Red Krayola’s music. Having released many albums with Red Krayola since 1976, Art & Language continue to develop this extension of their practice in advance of a performance in New York this September.
Listen to this and all other episodes of ON AIR on Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.
The episode includes the following track list:
The Red Krayola with Art & Language, Gross and Conspicuous Error #8, 1976 (Art & Language, Mayo Thompson, Jesse Chamberlain, Ian Burn)
The Red Krayola with Art & Language, Keep All Your Friends from Kangaroo?, 1981 (Art & Language, Allen Ravenstine, Ben Annesley, Gina Birch, Lora Logic, Mayo Thompson, Epic Soundtracks)
The Red Krayola with Art & Language, Portrait of V.I Lenin in the Style of Jackson Pollock, pt.1&2 from Kangaroo?, 1981 (Art & Language, Allen Ravenstine, Ben Annesley, Gina Birch, Lora Logic, Mayo Thompson, Epic Soundtracks)
The Red Krayola with Art & Language, Sighs Trapped by Liars, from Sighs Trapped by Liars, 2007 (Art & Language, Elisa Randazzo, Sandy Yang, Tom Watson, Mayo Thompson, Jim O'Rourke, Noel Kupersmith, John McEntire)
The Red Krayola with Art & Language from Gross & Conspicuous Errors, 1976 (Art & Language, Kathryn Bigelow, Mayo Thompson, Jesse Chamberlain)
The Red Krayola with Art & Language from Gross & Conspicuous Errors, 1976 (Art & Language, Kathryn Bigelow, Mayo Thompson, Jesse Chamberlain)
Art & Language, Postscript To SDS' Infiltration, Music-Language: Corrected Slogans, 176 (Art & Language, Jesse Chamberlain, Sandra Harrison, Pauline Harrison, Lynn Lemaster, Mayo Thompson, Colin Bateman, Thomas Duffy, Wieslaw Woszczyk)
