Art with a kick
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No comments [ Add Comment ]By Becky Wright
Standard-Examiner staff
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By Becky Wright
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By Becky Wright
Standard-Examiner staff
bwright@standard.net
Trimpin erects sculpture at USU museum
LOGAN -- Sometimes, suddenly, in the library-like quietness of the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, you'll hear a sound like dozens of feet tap-dancing on marimbas.
Follow the sound, and you'll find 96 wooden shoes hanging in midair, tappingtheir toes to complex rhythms.
They're not the haunted shoes of 48 Dutch ghosts, but a work of art by Trimpin.
Trimpin, the internationally known one-named artist, uses his sculptures to explore and celebrate sound.
As a boy, Trimpin's interest in sound led him to learn to play musical instruments, but he was forced to give them up. He developed an allergy on his lips and tongue from playing the brass and woodwind instruments.
"This kind of kept me from practicing a musical instrument, and that's when I was starting to think, 'How can I detach myself from this physical connection from a brass instrument, brass mouthpiece or woodwind mouthpiece?' " he said.
Inspiration came from the mechanical music machines he'd seen as he was growing up on the French and Swiss border in Germany, a region that had long been a center for craftsmen who created cuckoo clocks and music boxes with moving characters.
"When I was a young child, when we went somewhere to a restaurant, there was always some kind of music machine. Of course, you had to put in a quarter -- well, it was less, 10 cents or 5 cents at this time -- and then the fascination was that this angel would start to conduct while hitting bells, or there was always some movement going on while the music was playing," he remembered.
Now Trimpin has installed his own music machine, "Klompen," not in a restaurant, but in Utah State University's Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art .
And if you want to see and hear it work, you have to put in a quarter.
Klompen
"Klompen" features wooden shoes of various sizes, suspended by wiring from the ceiling. The shoes move, almost as if dancing, while playing rhythms composed by the artist.
"We think it's probably going to be a long-term favorite of the community," said Victoria Rowe, director of the museum, of the sculpture, which is a gift to the museum from the Marie Eccles Caine Foundation.
Trimpin created the first version of "Klompen" in 1987, when he was asked to teach an art workshop in Holland. He needed to come up with the materials to make a kinetic sound sculpture quickly, and he didn't have a large budget.
"I found all of the shoes in one day, in Amsterdam, at the flea market," he said.
The sound is made when small mallets and pistons inside the shoes strike the wood. The mechanisms are driven by solenoids, which he found in a junkyard.
"When you would go to a museum or gallery, you get inspirations, but I always got inspiration in a junkyard. You find a piece and listen to it, and that could be useful for some piece of some instrument and sculpture," he said.
Originally, "Klompen" was an outdoor sculpture, hooked up to a light-sensitive keyboard that Trimpin developed. Light and reflections in the environment changed the rhythms and patterns written by the artist, and so did ducks.
"It was actually floating on a small pond," he said, of the sculpture. "Sometimes, ducks would fly in and swim around, being curious, and they actually generated more waves and this was then more interactive."
When it was time for the sculpture to come down, Trimpin made modifications to make it museum-friendly.
"Galleries, they usually don't allow to fill their space up with water," he said.
He also added the equipment to make the piece coin-activated. The money supports the museum's educational outreach programs, but that's not what motivated Trimpin.
"The first time I installed this piece, I realized people were just pushing the button and walking away, and not even knowing what's going on," he said. "So, soon, I was installing this kind of quarter machine. When they insert a quarter, they wait until the last moment, until the piece is played, because they don't want to waste the 25 cents."
Innovation
Trimpin learned the basics about electricity, but he had to build his own computers and devices to play the instruments in his sculptures. With no background in computers, he relied on his ability to figure things out.
"As a kid, I was always curious. When I got some toys, I had to take it apart first, before I was starting to play. And sometimes I got this nice kind of expensive metal toy or train set, or whatever, and I had to take it secretly apart because everybody was afraid. 'You cannot do this! We just spent all this money and you take it apart!' " he said.
"But that was the other thing -- it had to be put together again, and it had to work. ... I guess that's how I learned, and still today I'm learning on the job always."
Worldwide projects
Trimpin's sculptures have been seen and heard around the world. The "Experience Music Project," in Seattle, features "IF VI WAS IX: Roots and Branches," incorporating more than 700 instruments controlled by 30 computers.
He's currently working on a piece that will be installed at the head of the Danube River in Germany, with woodwind-like instruments made of bamboo tubes, which play as they're pushed into the water.
Trimpin says the latest project is always the most exciting for him.
"Usually, when I do a new piece, I've never heard it before," he said, explaining that most pieces are too large to be put together in his studio. "The exciting part is always when you finally have it installed and listen for the first time to how it actually sounds."
The experimental nature of the work makes some folks nervous, Trimpin says.
"Museums curators, they want to have pictures, or whatever. They ask, 'How does it sound?' I say, 'I don't know, I've never heard it,' and they make this long face. 'Are you sure it works?' I say, 'Well, it better work.' "
"Klompen" experience
As exciting as new projects are, Trimpin says "Klompen" is still fun. Deciding how to install it in a different museum presents challenges, and having it at a university presents opportunities.
He'll be back next year to work with Utah State University's art and music students, and he hopes some of them will create new rhythms and music to be played on the wooden shoes.
And of course, there's always the thrill of showing work to a new audience.
"When I watch the audience ... the curiosity, you can see it on their expression, but I notice always when they are leaving there's some kind of a relief, because they experienced something they probably couldn't explain right way -- what happened and how it works -- but they learned something," he said.
"You don't have to learn the mechanics, or you don't have to learn the tuning system or how it's structured. When you leave, you should come up with in your own imagination what you experienced."
ONGOING
WHAT: 'Klompen'
WHEN: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturdays
WHERE: Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, 650 N. 1100 East, Utah State University, Logan
ADMISSION: Free; 25 cents to activate 'Klompen' sound and motion. For information, call (435) 797-0163.
OTHER WORKS
Trimpin's work can be seen around the world, but many of his permanent installations are in his adopted state of Washington
-- "On Matter, Monkeys and the King," Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. An 8-foot-long kinetic sculpture features cymbal-playing monkeys and a puppet of Elvis.
-- "Hydraulis," KeyArena, Seattle. A giant wall of water, falling like rain, changes with the movement of people in the arena.
-- Water sculpture, Snoqualmie Library, Snoqualmie. This sculpture, which Trimpin plans to finish soon, has to be quiet. The artist is using musical software and notation to control falling water to visually create words.
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