Photo: Martin Klimas, Sinus 36, 2014, 12 x 12 inches, Pigment Print.
Have you ever seen a sound—or even a whole song? Back in the 1990s, I inadvertently ate an eighth of shrooms before heading out to a Junior Vasquez tea party at the Palladium. I still remember the sound of the helicopter rising overhead; that’s when I took off for parts unknown. For the first hour, it was way too intense, walls melting, skeletons showing, a real mess. But then things settled in, and visual responses to the songs began to dance In front of my eyes. Patterns flowed with every song, a mix of color, shape, and rhythm unique to the soundscape. Synesthesia was happening and it was everything.
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The appearance of sound, its visual form, inspired German artist Martin Klimas to explore the question, “What does sound look like?” The answer to this question can be found in Martin Klimas: Sound Works at Foley Gallery, New York, now through May 22, 2016. The exhibition features works from several series including SONIC, Sound Explosions, and Pure Tones, which brilliantly execute different ways of looking at sound.
Martin Klimas, David Bowie “Ziggy Stardust”, 22.5 x 16.5 inches, Pigment Print
In SONIC, Klimas uses well-known songs by an eclectic group of musicians including Beethoven, David Bowie, Miles Davis. Daft Punk, and Jamiroquai, to distill a moment of the song into a fluid ripple of color. There is an energy, a sense of life, and a sense that the elemental structure of experience can be articulated from one sense to another. In David Bowie “Ziggy Stardust”, Klimas reveals the spirit of song, a precise and powerful explosion that beautifully reveals another layer of experience happening, even if it’s without our conscious knowledge.
In Sound Explosions, Klimas created original collaborations with musicians, asking that they create “patches” of sound using analogue synthesizers made between 1930 and 1990. The synthesizers are presented as to prologue the intricate vibrations of sound, which he animates with powdered pigments. To create the images, Klimas places a scrim over the speaker diaphragm and carefully places the chosen pigments for the sound reaction. Then, using high-speed camera technology, he captures the kaleidoscopic chaos that appears when the sound begins. Each pigment abstraction is be paired with a photograph of the machine that created it.
For Pure Tones, Klimas removes organized sound, or beats, instead using a frequency generator to create the basic building blocks of music. Sine tones are used to stimulate the surface of water and Klimas photographs the resulting “standing waves”. Some of these photographs will be displayed as lenticular prints, giving the viewer a four-faced view of each tone.
By employing precise approach to these explorations of sight and sound, Klimas brilliantly bridges the perceived divide between art and science. The exploration of sound in sight is a stark reminder that the picture, though it may speak a thousand words, it never does so aloud. The picture is always silent, and often times, so are we. Sight dominates, unspoken words flow, but the color, shape, and rhythms of sound abound.
Martin Klimas, Jamiroquai “Space Cowboy”, 22.5 x 16.5 inches, Pigment Print.
All photos: ©Marttn Klimas, courtesy of Foley Gallery, New York.
Miss Rosen is a New York-based writer, curator, and brand strategist. There is nothing she adores so much as photography and books. A small part of her wishes she had a proper library, like in the game of Clue. Then she could blaze and write soliloquies to her in and out of print loves.
