SFAC Gallery: Spiraling Echoes exhibition date extended to December 11, 2009
For Immediate Release
The San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery Announces Final Extension of Spiraling Echoes
A Sound Sculpture for the Rotunda of San Francisco City Hall
By Sound Art Pioneer Bill Fontana
Dates: Extended through December 11, 2009
Location: San Francisco City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place
Rotunda and upper floor walkways
Hours: City Hall is open to the public Monday – Friday, 8 a.m. – 8 p.m.
SAN FRANCISCO, August 4, 2009 – The San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery is pleased to announce the extension of Bill Fontana’s Spiraling Echoes, a newly-commissioned sound sculpture sited in the Rotunda of San Francisco City Hall, through December 11, 2009. The decision to extend the installation was made in response to both the overwhelming public reception of the artwork, and to recent news of Fontana receiving two lifetime achievement awards this fall. In October, Fontana, who is a resident of San Francisco, will receive the Golden Nica Award in the Digital Music Category from Prix Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria), and in November the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) will honor the artist with its 2009 Bay Area Treasure Award (http://www.sfmoma.org/events/1489).
Director of Cultural Affairs, Luis R. Cancel says, “The Arts Commission would like to congratulate Bill on the regional and international accolades he is deservedly receiving this year for a lifetime of magnificent artistic achievements. He certainly is a San Francisco treasure, and we are proud to have commissioned Spiraling Echoes, his first large-scale project in San Francisco in over twenty years.”
Commissioned as part of the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery’s Art at City Hall program, Fontana’s site-specific installation is designed to interact with the architecture of San Francisco’s historic City Hall. The installation of Spiraling Echoes coincides with the 10th anniversary of the City Hall restoration and renovation.
Four specialized speakers, called transducers, which narrowly focus sound, are mounted around the circular colonnade inside the dome. The transducers emit Fontana’s original recordings in a random sampling of sounds including tram bells, water and birds. The directional ultrasonic beams of sound reflect off the surfaces of the architectural elements, creating spiraling echoes that float through the vast column of space. Bill Fontana stated, “Spiraling Echoes activates the architecture of City Hall with the movement of sound. Encountering the installation evokes a rethinking of the history and context of this site.”
Biographical information: Bill Fontana is an American composer and artist who developed an international reputation for his pioneering experiments in sound. Since the early 1970’s he has used sound as a sculptural medium to interact with and transform our perceptions of visual and architectural spaces. He has realized sound sculpture and radio projects for museums and broadcast organizations around the world. His work has been exhibited widely including the Whitney Museum of American Art, both Tate Modern and Tate Britain in London, the 48th Venice Biennale, the Art History and Natural History Museums in Vienna, and the new Kolumba Museum in Cologne. Major radio sound art projects include works for the BBC, the European Broadcast Union, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, National Public Radio, West German Radio, Swedish Radio, Radio France and the Austrian State Radio. Fontana’s previous Bay Area works include Sound Sculpture with a Sequence of Level Crossings, Oakland, l982, an eight channel sound map of fast-moving train whistles; Landscape Sculpture with Fog Horns, San Francisco, 1981, a map of the acoustics of San Francisco Bay; and Sound Sculptures through the Golden Gate, San Francisco, 1987, a live duet between the Farallon Islands and the Golden Gate Bridge transmitted to the façade of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. For further information visit his website: www.resoundings.org.
Art at City Hall is a program of the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery. Since 1970, the SFAC Gallery has been celebrating and sharing the work of Bay Area, national and international artists at its three Civic Center locations and sites around the city. This exhibition has been approved by the San Francisco Arts Commission and is generously supported by Grants for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, Haines Gallery, the Zellerbach Family Foundation, and Nancy and Steven Oliver.
San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery
401 Van Ness Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94102
t: 415.554.6080
f: 415.554.6093
www.sfacgallery.org
www.sfartscommission.org
Press Contact: Meg Shiffler, Gallery Director
Photos available upon request
e: meg.shiffler@sfgov.org t:415-554-6080
Websites:
Exhibition: www.sfartscommission.org/gallery
Bill Fontana: www.resoundings.org
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