The Score

Weekend performances at the Potter: October 7, 1–2pm
Sandra Parkes; Shelly Lasica & Fayen d’Evie; VCA dance students
Ian Potter Museum of Art, Swanston Street, Parkville, VIC, 3010 

A Galaxy of Suns: October 10, 7–8pm,
Michaela Gleave presents A Galaxy of Suns featuring a 36-part choir singing the stars as they rise and set over the horizon. 
​Ian Potter Museum of Art, Swanston Street, Parkville, VIC, 3010 

System Garden concert: October 14, 5–6pm 
Dylan Martorell with Lichen Kemp and guests Ying-Hooi and Tarquin Manek, Fia Fiell
System Garden, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, 3010 

An evening with Charles Gaines: October 18, 6–7:30pm,
Learn about the work of this significant artist who over 40 years has explored the relationship between aesthetics and politics.
​Ian Potter Museum of Art, Swanston Street, Parkville, VIC, 3010  

Weekend performances: October 21, 1–2pm 
Helen Grogan and Carolyn Connor 
​Ian Potter Museum of Art, Swanston Street, Parkville, VIC, 3010 

Sound Text: October 21, 6am–7:10pm 
Created by renowned US conceptual artist Charles Gaines 
Melbourne Recital Centre, Salon 31 Sturt Street, Southbank 

Colour-Music: October 24, 6–7pm
John Nixon and an ensemble of musicians play his “Colour-Music” paintings.
​Ian Potter Museum of Art, Swanston Street, Parkville, VIC, 3010 

The Ian Potter Museum of Art at The University of Melbourne presents the cross-discliplinary exhibition, The Score, which spans all three floors of the museum from Tuesday, August 1 to Sunday, November 5. The exhibition is presented in association with Melbourne Festival (October 5 to 22 October 22).

The Score explores musical notation as a form of translation. Transcribing sound into drawing, musical scores are a visual representation of the aural complexities of pitch, rhythm and tempo. The Score expands upon this spirit of transformation to ask, if music can be represented by notes on a staff, why not by colours? If a song can be performed by the voice, why not with silent hand gestures?

In this international group exhibition, a range of contemporary and historical artworks explore transformations from one discipline to another, from the sonic to the visual to the kinaesthetic. The exhibition includes the colour music experiments of Modernist abstract painters such as Roy de Maistre and Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack. Their works inform the more recent abstractions of John Nixon, whose paintings will be “played” in the gallery by a musical ensemble. Influential composer John Cage’s movable scores made of Plexiglass and acetate are showcased alongside drawings by Marco Fusinato, which compress Cage’s Water Music into one moment. Performance videos by Sriwhana Spong, Yuki Kihara, and Christine Sun Kim & Thomas Mader explore the communicative potential of gesture and movement. A performance program accompanies the exhibition, including American artist Charles Gaines’ chamber opera Sound Text, a vocal and music score derived from political manifestoes. Michaela Gleave will present Galaxy of Suns, a 36-part choir performance based upon the location of the stars, created in collaboration with Amanda Cole and Warren Armstrong and first performed at 2016 Dark Mofo, Tasmania. 

Artists and performers include: Pia Borg / John Cage / Roy de Maistre / Fayen d’Evie / Marco Fusinato / Charles Gaines / Kurltjunyintja Jackie Giles / Michaela Gleave / Agatha Gothe-Snape / Nathan Gray / Helen Grogan / Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack / Yuki Kihara / Emily Kam Kngwarray / Shelley Lasica / Sonia Leber & David Chesworth / Dylan Martorell / Angelica Mesiti / John Nixon / Sandra Parker & Rhian Hinkley / Rammey Ramsey / Mia Salsjö / Charlie Sofo / Sriwhana Spong / Christine Sun Kim & Thomas Mader / Danae Valenza / Jude Walton

This exhibition has been generously supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body; Naomi Milgrom, AO; and the Consulate General of the United States, Melbourne.