Achtung! Veranstaltung vorbei!
Matt Mottel (b. 1981, NYC) presents a historical exhibition that reveals the grueling yet strangely familiar touring conditions faced by Amadeus Mozart and his musical cohort Leopold Röllig in the late 18th century. Specifically focusing on the period that the duo spent in Vienna while burnt out from the road, this exhibition exposes the harsh realities that touring musicians experienced on the road and in Viennese society in their time. Mozart and Röllig were touring mates during the 1780’s as they crossed Europe. They both played an instrument known as the ‘Glass Harmonica’ that was designed by Benjamin Franklin in the 1760’s. It is said that this instrument had a negative effect on both the audience and the musician. The glass was combined with lead, so it literally poisoned the performers, while ‘the State’ believed that its high frequency range of acoustic phenomena caused a deleterious “hysteria” effect on women.
After playing an endless array of bummer gigs on the touring circuit, musical patron Gottfried van Swieten offered Mozart and Röllig an invitation to post up at Vienna’s Prefect of the Imperial Library. While walking and smoking cigarettes on the streets of Vienna, Mozart and Röllig discussed how they could avoid the catastrophes of lugging the weighty and cumbersome glass harmonica in the back wagon of a horse. There on the street they witnessed a recital by an Egyptian Harpist and were amazed at how the musician was able to walk away with their easily carried, relatively light instrument. It was at this moment that The Orphica was conceived as a portable piano (an ancient Keytar, held across the chest with a strap) that was soon designed by Karl Leopold Röllig during their stay.
Artist Matt Mottel, a contemporary touring musician who specializes in playing the electric Keytar, reveals the origins and Kultur of the Viennese Orphica by presenting artwork in the form of instruments, a video essay, documentation, artifacts, ephemera that will be on display.
Vienna’s Gundula Gruber Gallery is the portal into an expansive musicological and artistic presentation of Mottel, Amadeus Mozart and Karl Leopold Röllig’s interconnected relationship.
Mottel uses the site of the gallery to form a band. Activating Mottel’s artwork are the band members;
Sherine Anis is a Viennese artist. In her contribution, she chooses elements interconnecting Mottel’s historical presentation, using glass work as the medium. Anis’s artwork allows for the principle of discovery to stand out.
Her sculpture is a totemic portrait of a glass harmonica. The sound of this deconstructed instrument starts in an undefined space of silence. It represents the unknown of possibilities. Once it is used and played, new configurations of musicality are heard. The element of glass is in the foreground. Sounds are created; vibrating through the glass, caused by the participation of the spectators. It is the choice of the viewer to become part of the sound composition.
The other band members of the exhibition are Andrew Dreyer, who is a Brooklyn painter, Florian Pilz, a Viennese youtube broadcaster and musician, Sander, a Berlin welder, Nicole Lattuca, a New York Artist making works on paper, Ken Butler, a Brooklyn hybrid instrument luthier, and Susan Mottel; a New York painter who is also Mottel’s mother. Rounding out the band is Katharina Huber, a Cologne Filmmaker, with musician and artist Mik Quantius, and Michael Jansen, from Cologne and Dusseldorf, who appear as actors in the short film by Mottel titled ‘MOZART ON THE ROAD’.
Their own unique contributions support Mottel’s artistic vision that the gallery is a shared stage, unified in presentation.
For those not in Vienna, an artist designed NFT will be made available to memorialize the exhibition.
This history is a camaraderie experienced by fellow touring musicians, whose own life experiences on the road mirror the stress, adversity and experiences of Mozart and Röllig.
In addition, there will be a “Matzah Pop Up” at the opening, with the secret recipe of Mottel’s great great grandfather Mordechai Mottel, who also coincidentally may have found Mozart’s discarded Orphica.
02.10.2021
Matt Mottel ; burnt truth
Foto: Gallery Gundula Gruber
With Sherine Anis, Andrew Dreyer, Florian Pilz, Ken Butler, Nicole Lattuca, Sander, Katharina Huber, Mik Quantius, Michael Jansen and Susan Mottel.
Matt Mottel (b. 1981, NYC) presents a historical exhibition that reveals the grueling yet strangely familiar touring conditions faced by Amadeus Mozart and his musical cohort Leopold Röllig in the late 18th century. Specifically focusing on the period that the duo spent in Vienna while burnt out from the road, this exhibition exposes the harsh realities that touring musicians experienced on the road and in Viennese society in their time. Mozart and Röllig were touring mates during the 1780’s as they crossed Europe. They both played an instrument known as the ‘Glass Harmonica’ that was designed by Benjamin Franklin in the 1760’s. It is said that this instrument had a negative effect on both the audience and the musician. The glass was combined with lead, so it literally poisoned the performers, while ‘the State’ believed that its high frequency range of acoustic phenomena caused a deleterious “hysteria” effect on women.
After playing an endless array of bummer gigs on the touring circuit, musical patron Gottfried van Swieten offered Mozart and Röllig an invitation to post up at Vienna’s Prefect of the Imperial Library. While walking and smoking cigarettes on the streets of Vienna, Mozart and Röllig discussed how they could avoid the catastrophes of lugging the weighty and cumbersome glass harmonica in the back wagon of a horse. There on the street they witnessed a recital by an Egyptian Harpist and were amazed at how the musician was able to walk away with their easily carried, relatively light instrument. It was at this moment that The Orphica was conceived as a portable piano (an ancient Keytar, held across the chest with a strap) that was soon designed by Karl Leopold Röllig during their stay.
Artist Matt Mottel, a contemporary touring musician who specializes in playing the electric Keytar, reveals the origins and Kultur of the Viennese Orphica by presenting artwork in the form of instruments, a video essay, documentation, artifacts, ephemera that will be on display.
Vienna’s Gundula Gruber Gallery is the portal into an expansive musicological and artistic presentation of Mottel, Amadeus Mozart and Karl Leopold Röllig’s interconnected relationship.
Mottel uses the site of the gallery to form a band. Activating Mottel’s artwork are the band members;
Sherine Anis is a Viennese artist. In her contribution, she chooses elements interconnecting Mottel’s historical presentation, using glass work as the medium. Anis’s artwork allows for the principle of discovery to stand out.
Her sculpture is a totemic portrait of a glass harmonica. The sound of this deconstructed instrument starts in an undefined space of silence. It represents the unknown of possibilities. Once it is used and played, new configurations of musicality are heard. The element of glass is in the foreground. Sounds are created; vibrating through the glass, caused by the participation of the spectators. It is the choice of the viewer to become part of the sound composition.
The other band members of the exhibition are Andrew Dreyer, who is a Brooklyn painter, Florian Pilz, a Viennese youtube broadcaster and musician, Sander, a Berlin welder, Nicole Lattuca, a New York Artist making works on paper, Ken Butler, a Brooklyn hybrid instrument luthier, and Susan Mottel; a New York painter who is also Mottel’s mother. Rounding out the band is Katharina Huber, a Cologne Filmmaker, with musician and artist Mik Quantius, and Michael Jansen, from Cologne and Dusseldorf, who appear as actors in the short film by Mottel titled ‘MOZART ON THE ROAD’.
Their own unique contributions support Mottel’s artistic vision that the gallery is a shared stage, unified in presentation.
For those not in Vienna, an artist designed NFT will be made available to memorialize the exhibition.
This history is a camaraderie experienced by fellow touring musicians, whose own life experiences on the road mirror the stress, adversity and experiences of Mozart and Röllig.
In addition, there will be a “Matzah Pop Up” at the opening, with the secret recipe of Mottel’s great great grandfather Mordechai Mottel, who also coincidentally may have found Mozart’s discarded Orphica.
Veranstaltungsinfos
- Gallery Gundula Gruber
- Schweizertalstraße 4/1
-
JEDEN MITTWOCH DONNERSTAG FREITAG bis 06.11.2021
12:00 - 18:00 Uhr - gundula.gruber@gmx.at