Anita Rogers Gallery is presenting for the first time ever a solo show of Morgan O'Hara's LIVE TRANSMISSION drawings of the movement of musicians in performance. Meeting John Cage in Los Angeles in 1961 when she was a 20-year-old art student opened the door to O'Hara's enjoyment and appreciation of contemporary / new music. Cage's book SILENCE: Lectures and Writings by John Cage was published that same year by Wesleyan University Press and provided context, starting a life-long influence on both the thinking and art process of O'Hara's Life-Based Conceptual Art.
Of the roughly 3500 drawings in O'Hara's LIVE TRANSMISSION series, approximately 1/4 have been made by tracking the movement of the hands of musicians in rehearsal and performance. Soloists, duets, ensembles, orchestras, technicians working to create ethnic, classical, contemporary, pop, jazz and rock music make up the series.
O'Hara's new website - active since October 2021 - is set up as an archive. There you will find several editions dedicated to honoring John Cage: balsa wood DISCS with questions from Silence drawn in graphite on an undercoat of orange calligraphers ink; and a series of 100 ink drawings of EARS on paper, done for the centennial of Cage's birth, each with a quotation from his writings written across the bottom and up the right side of each paper (variable sizes).
This exhibition includes a selection of LIVE TRANSMISSIONS of musical performances the artist has attended over the last 30 years, including those by Anthony Braxton, Margaret Leng Tan, Aki Takahashi, K.D. Lang, John Adams and many others in cities and performance halls across the world. The exhibition will be on view October 19 through November 23 at 494 Greenwich Street in New York City. On Wednesday, October 19, 6-8pm, the gallery will host an opening reception with the artist; at 7pm on the evening of the reception, there will be a LIVE TRANSMISSION performance with Morgan O’Hara and percussionist Kevin Norton.
The gallery thanks Mitchell Algus for his assistance with curation of the exhibition.
For further information and photographs, please contact Elizabeth Thompson at elizabeth.thompson@anitarogersgallery.com, or call 347.604.2346. The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday 10am – 6pm.