Aaron Waller created a curious composition from a box of found antique player piano parts. The found objects were in his father’s garage, not surprising, his father spent part of his career being a piano tuner, including repairing and rebuilding pianos. The leftover pieces were kept as potential replacement parts for a future repair. Now the pieces were being reassigned to an art assemblage.
An assemblage is art created and made by assembling elements often of everyday objects that have been scavenged by an artist or especially purchased for an art project. In this case the box of found objects were somewhat curated. All the objects found in the box were old elements from a pneumatic player piano. Beyond the box of piano parts, Waller expanded the composition by adding his grandfather’s signed old sheet music and an old picture frame from his grandmother’s pile. All the found objects were arranged to compose - “The Eccentric Conductor - Opus One.”
Waller’s artistic eye used only qualifying objects that properly fit into the composition making it a unified whole. He has an Art Degree from the Denver Art Institute with a background in graphic design and photography. It is this background that turns this project into part collage and part assemblage, and he even utilizes the recycled frame as part the art. Perhaps it is his graphic background that moves his composition into the Dada realm.
He takes the musical scores, lays them in a cross hatching pattern and leaves the musical sheet title of “Beautiful Dreamer” by Stephen Foster totally visible as a tribute to his grandfather. In the 1930s, his grandfather, a Montanan, studied music through the American College of Music, St. Louis, MO. Beyond his tribute, Waller may also be signaling to the viewer that he is playing with surrealism. It is only through surrealism, a subconscious dream that we can see retired piano parts become the eccentric conductor.
Waller uses the frame to ground his composition and within that frame it becomes a three-dimensional multi-layered collage. Here, Waller uses the power to puncture the thin veneer of reality and taps into the subconscious mind; the ends of the piano rolls became the conductor’s eyes, the wooden support piece is now a goatee, and metal mechanical parts become a handlebar-mustache, eyebrows, and lips. Likewise, metal braces are created into a center part for the conductor’s hair. Beyond these elements, there is much more to decipher within the work.
He drew upon the historical avant-garde artists who selected strange and curious objects for their assemblages. Joseph Cornell (1903-1972) was the most popular artist who used assemblages to create curious cabinets. Cornell filled them with ready made found objects that stimulated intellectual curiosity and cultural awareness. Curiosity cabinets were very popular with the growing middle class and were often found in Victorian homes. Here, Waller creates a curious composition of items that are not recognizable today. The viewer is thinking and seeing the component parts differently than their original intended use.
Player pianos (a self-playing piano) contain pneumatic or electro-mechanical mechanisms that operate the piano action via programmed music recorded on a perforated paper roll. The player piano was popular and mass-produced in the late 19th and early 20th century before there were great improvements in phonograph recordings. With the invention of the electrical amplification, and music reproduction for the radio, it left the player piano in a steady decline. Here, Waller becomes the court composer of the antique parts reassigning them to a new symphony composition. The composition has a homemade robot quality, like a player piano, put a nickel in the slot and watch the conductor strike up the orchestra.
Waller’s composition fits within the Dada movement, as this group of artists were the first to use collage and assemblage. A German artist Richard Huelsenbeck slid a paper knife (letter-opener) at random into a dictionary, where it landed on "dada", a colloquial French term for a hobby horse, and that is how it got its name. Dada was created in reaction to World War I, and the movement consisted of artists who rejected the logic, reason, and aestheticism of modern capitalist society, instead expressing nonsense, irrationality, and anti-bourgeois protest in their works. The art of the movement spanned visual, literary, and sound media, including collage, sound poetry, cut-up writing, and sculpture. Today there are neo-Dadaists expanding on their forefathers vision as Waller does with his assemblage.
This project began with collaboration, found materials, an unprecedented vision with a creative solution, and then, finally the project execution. Waller, along with his father, assembled the composition using hide-glue, screws and wire, implementing craftsmen techniques to hide the construction elements. The project craftsmanship matched the vision and the artistic solution. The father - son team hid the unsightly parts that make the composition robust.
Waller joins a list of contemporary sculptors that are reinventing collage and assemblage as a neo-Dadaist. The title: The Eccentric Conductor - Opus One, plays on the provocative composition of the musical conductor, but also applies to the first work; thus Opus One. Perhaps it is “one and done”, and there will never be another masterpiece. Nevertheless, we will announce if there ever is an Opus Two with musical associations that bewilder the senses.
An assemblage is art created and made by assembling elements often of everyday objects that have been scavenged by an artist or especially purchased for an art project. In this case the box of found objects were somewhat curated. All the objects found in the box were old elements from a pneumatic player piano. Beyond the box of piano parts, Waller expanded the composition by adding his grandfather’s signed old sheet music and an old picture frame from his grandmother’s pile. All the found objects were arranged to compose - “The Eccentric Conductor - Opus One.”
 |
| The Eccentric Conductor - Opus One Aaron Waller Signed on the Reverse Player Piano Parts, Music on Masonite |
Waller’s artistic eye used only qualifying objects that properly fit into the composition making it a unified whole. He has an Art Degree from the Denver Art Institute with a background in graphic design and photography. It is this background that turns this project into part collage and part assemblage, and he even utilizes the recycled frame as part the art. Perhaps it is his graphic background that moves his composition into the Dada realm.
He takes the musical scores, lays them in a cross hatching pattern and leaves the musical sheet title of “Beautiful Dreamer” by Stephen Foster totally visible as a tribute to his grandfather. In the 1930s, his grandfather, a Montanan, studied music through the American College of Music, St. Louis, MO. Beyond his tribute, Waller may also be signaling to the viewer that he is playing with surrealism. It is only through surrealism, a subconscious dream that we can see retired piano parts become the eccentric conductor.
Waller uses the frame to ground his composition and within that frame it becomes a three-dimensional multi-layered collage. Here, Waller uses the power to puncture the thin veneer of reality and taps into the subconscious mind; the ends of the piano rolls became the conductor’s eyes, the wooden support piece is now a goatee, and metal mechanical parts become a handlebar-mustache, eyebrows, and lips. Likewise, metal braces are created into a center part for the conductor’s hair. Beyond these elements, there is much more to decipher within the work.
He drew upon the historical avant-garde artists who selected strange and curious objects for their assemblages. Joseph Cornell (1903-1972) was the most popular artist who used assemblages to create curious cabinets. Cornell filled them with ready made found objects that stimulated intellectual curiosity and cultural awareness. Curiosity cabinets were very popular with the growing middle class and were often found in Victorian homes. Here, Waller creates a curious composition of items that are not recognizable today. The viewer is thinking and seeing the component parts differently than their original intended use.
Player pianos (a self-playing piano) contain pneumatic or electro-mechanical mechanisms that operate the piano action via programmed music recorded on a perforated paper roll. The player piano was popular and mass-produced in the late 19th and early 20th century before there were great improvements in phonograph recordings. With the invention of the electrical amplification, and music reproduction for the radio, it left the player piano in a steady decline. Here, Waller becomes the court composer of the antique parts reassigning them to a new symphony composition. The composition has a homemade robot quality, like a player piano, put a nickel in the slot and watch the conductor strike up the orchestra.
Waller’s composition fits within the Dada movement, as this group of artists were the first to use collage and assemblage. A German artist Richard Huelsenbeck slid a paper knife (letter-opener) at random into a dictionary, where it landed on "dada", a colloquial French term for a hobby horse, and that is how it got its name. Dada was created in reaction to World War I, and the movement consisted of artists who rejected the logic, reason, and aestheticism of modern capitalist society, instead expressing nonsense, irrationality, and anti-bourgeois protest in their works. The art of the movement spanned visual, literary, and sound media, including collage, sound poetry, cut-up writing, and sculpture. Today there are neo-Dadaists expanding on their forefathers vision as Waller does with his assemblage.
This project began with collaboration, found materials, an unprecedented vision with a creative solution, and then, finally the project execution. Waller, along with his father, assembled the composition using hide-glue, screws and wire, implementing craftsmen techniques to hide the construction elements. The project craftsmanship matched the vision and the artistic solution. The father - son team hid the unsightly parts that make the composition robust.
Waller joins a list of contemporary sculptors that are reinventing collage and assemblage as a neo-Dadaist. The title: The Eccentric Conductor - Opus One, plays on the provocative composition of the musical conductor, but also applies to the first work; thus Opus One. Perhaps it is “one and done”, and there will never be another masterpiece. Nevertheless, we will announce if there ever is an Opus Two with musical associations that bewilder the senses.
_____________________________________________________________
- Artist and Assemblage: Aaron Anthony Waller
- Collaboration Director: Bruce Waller
- Collaboration Curator: Anthony Waller
- Construction/Assemblage Assistants: Bruce Waller/Anthony Waller
- Artwork Installation: Robert E. Yoblonsky
- Written Documentation: Anthony Waller
- Sheet Music Provided by: Sander J. Waller
- Frame Provided by: Beulah Glaze Waller
- Piano Parts Provided by: Bruce Waller
Comments
Post a Comment