Artist: Ashley Holmes
Exhibition title: A Free Moment
Curated by: Christina Gigliotti
Venue: Futura, Prague, The Czech Republic
Date: February 25 – May 31, 2020
As you enter this room washed over with a sunset hue, I’d like you to turn inward. It’s not often that one can find time for a free moment of reflection, and so here we are, affording it to you, if you like.
Rhythmanalysis in vibrational ontology tells us that all matter, down to a molecular, even quantum level, vibrates. If a particle ceased to vibrate, it would cease to exist.
Does this knowledge free us from stagnation? Does it encourage us? Frighten us?
Within his body of work, Ashley Holmes works closely with sound and Black contemporary music to re-tell and re-articulate narratives from the past. Using samples and archival material from multiple genres and sub-genres, which he often distorts and alters, the artist challenges the audience by presenting familiarity alongside new, deviated forms. For A Free Moment, Holmes invites us into a space most often experienced collectively–that of a concert venue or club. With minimalism and functionality at the forefront, listeners are meant to experience sound without distraction or disturbances of sensory overstimulation.
The audio piece created for this exhibition, (in collaboration with Joseph Bond) on the surface level, coaxes us into a state of relaxation, of focused tranquility. One can start to recognize familiar sounds, notes, melodies, harmonies. It is not difficult to follow a pattern that woos us, oils our tracks for an easier slide into the infinity of repetition. One can imagine time softly padding along like this, with all gas and no brakes. As soon as we are lulled, however, the artists reveal their intentions. It is not unbridled continuity they seek, but moments of intensity to break the order. Cuts and chops awaken us out of sleep. Clashes and novelties make way for something new.
What endures? The more intense a vibration, the longer it echoes.
– Christina Gigliotti
