THE ARTIST ALONE DECIDES

A Showcase of Musicianship in conjunction with 9, curated by Internal/Eternal

A Live-Stream Music Event, May 23rd at 7PM (CST)

Broadcast live via Civic TV & Internal/Eternal's Instagram & Facebook Live Feeds

 

Media
Bellow are video and audio media archives of this live-stream event.  We hope you enjoy access to these new and unique collaborative tracks by Harris and Jawwaad, and please share!

About The Artist Alone Decides:
In conjunction with Civic TV's exhibition "9" for the 2020 FotoFest biennial, Internal/Eternal presents "The Artist Alone Decides," a performance in which Houston artists Jawwaad Taylor and Li Harris grapple with the limits of isolation and the interior ecstasies of focused listening, dialogue with one's interior self, and a distanced other. Their remote performance, to be staged in Houston's Third Ward, will be viewable exclusively as a live stream on Instagram and Facebook on Saturday, May 23 at 7:00PM CST. The performance will also be recorded and released as a companion to the forthcoming exhibition catalog for 9. The performed piece stands as a performative and sonic counterpoint to the visual work displayed in 9, celebrating a universal cosmology reaching from Africa to the stars and beyond.

"The Artist Alone Decides" references the motto of the famed avant-jazz record label ESP Disk – “The artist alone decides what you will hear on their ESP Disk” — and plays with questions around the alleged “autonomy” of artists suspended between the machinations of the branded institution (the record label, the curated exhibition) and the expectations of a consuming public. Now, within the Covid-19 pandemic, the artists must also confront the ambiguous isolation of distancing. What does it mean to be free when artists are constrained not only by the economic realities of presentation and curatorial taste, but also by the barriers of enforced isolation?

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About the Musicians:
Jawwaad Taylor is a trumpeter, composer, producer, educator, and social activist. Within the jazz and free jazz universe, Taylor performs solo and with fellow improvisors and hip hop artists from around the world. As co-founder and producer of the band The Young Mothers, he merges modern jazz, improvisation, hip hop, indie rock, and Afro-grooves. He collaborates regularly with and performs with MacArthur Fellow Carrie Mae Weems and other visual artists, blending his compositions into their visual work.
Lisa E. Harris, Li, is an independent and interdisciplinary artist, performer and composer from Houston Texas, USA. Li is trained as a classical voice/opera singer and performs across a wide range of genres and mediums. She is a certified facilitator of DEEP LISTENING®, the sonic philosophies of composer Pauline Oliveros.  Li's work focuses on the energetic relationships between body, land, spirit, and place. She uses voice, theremin, movement, improvisation, meditation, and new media to explore healing in performance and living.