A key aspect of Jason Moran’s career as a jazz musician and visual artist has been research, including poring over archival photos of stages at legendary jazz clubs of decades past, like the Savoy Ballroom, the Three Deuces, and Slug’s Saloon. “But they were never enough to satisfy my urge to feel what it was like to sit inside one.”
In a new Artspeaks video, Moran discusses the three stages he recreated—both as art objects and as performance spaces within the galleries—for his Walker-organized exhibition, Jason Moran. “Even though I was trained by some great people, they didn’t put the notion in my mind that you should consider the frame. That even when you step on the stage at the Village Vanguard, that itself is a frame, and that frame has history, too.”
The Great Indoors: Highlights from the Walker’s Collection
The subject of the “room”—from the artist’s studio to domestic settings to public places—has captured the interest of artists throughout history. As many of us remain quarantined in our homes (or are perhaps are finally venturing outside), curators Siri Engberg and Jadine Collingwood take us on a virtual tour of works in the exhibition Five Ways In to explore how artists convey the routines, pleasures, and complexities of our lives indoors.
How can a work of dance be collected by a museum? How, why, and to what ends can a museum collection support interdisciplinary artworks that stem from performances? What opportunities and limitations do such works present to the artist and institution? Pavel Pyś considers acquisitions of works by Maria Hassabi, Jason Moran, Joan Jonas, Meredith Monk, and Carolee Schneemann that have each presented unique questions, challenging and opening new ways for the Walker to approach collecting.
“The possibilities are limitless," Jason Moran wrote to Walker Performing Arts curator Philip Bither in 2003. He was referring to a new commission by the Walker to create Milestone, a jazz performance based on the center's permanent collection, but, as Bither writes, "his sentiment could have applied equally to the relationship that would develop over the next fifteen years between the artist and the Walker." As Moran opens his first solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art, we share Bither's essay from the Walker-produced exhibition catalogue for Jason Moran.
From catalogue chapter headings inspired by jazz gig posters to the graphic identity for LOOP magazine, here's a look at the designs for the Walker's Jason Moran exhibition, created by 12:01—Office of Hassan Rahim.
Introducing LOOP: A New Kind of Jazz Magazine from Jason Moran
“If the music was changing, why wasn’t the format of the jazz magazine shifting around?” Straight from the mind of polymath musician/artist Jason Moran comes a new kind of music publication. Looking at jazz culture from an African American perspective, LOOP features the voices of Moran, his friends, family, and collaborators, including Steve Coleman, Matana Roberts, Kendrick Scott, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Greg Tate, and Cassandra Wilson, among others. In cooperation with the artist and Luhring Augustine, the Walker Art Center is honored to host LOOP—this inaugural issue and all future ones—in digital form right here on Walker Reader.
Radical Transparency: A Review of Jason Moran’s The Last Jazz Fest
"The Last Jazz Fest is productively uncomfortable; it asks audience members to interrogate their expectations and assumptions around jazz, to melt our fantasy of artistic transcendence, and to expose what is erased or ignored to feel 'present.'” Dylan Redford reviews the recent Walker-commissioned performance work by Jason Moran and The Bandwagon with Ryan Trecartin, Lizzie Fitch, and Ashland Mines (DJ Total Freedom).
Milestones and Memorials: Jason Moran on His First Museum Exhibition
"As a pianist and as one who improvises and moves the line consistently, to know that there's someone there holding it down with the strong idea is like—it's like a good bass player in a band. That bass player is holding it down. They are the Sol LeWitt in the band." In a new interview, Jason Moran discusses his love of conceptual art, collaborating with artists like Adrian Piper, and his series of "set" sculptures, which pay homage to iconic jazz venues, including Slugs' Saloon and the Savoy Ballroom.
