Los Angeles – “Speak courageously!” Says musician and composer Julius Eastman in the 1981 Prelude against his musical composition, “The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc.” In the latest Redcat exhibition, World of Echo: Julius Eastman and Arthur RussellEastman’s daring speech is often only heard in echoes: between the present and the past, the dead and the living – and, the most prominent, between the most important topics of the exhibition, old friends and musicians Julius Eastman and Arthur Russell. What the result is is a lively polyphony that is tailored to Ephemera, recordings and video documentation, a chorus that Eastman and Russell’s career as Solo artists and employees maps prior to their early 1990s, both from complications related to AIDS.
The exhibition unfolds around a 10-channel video and sound installation in the center of the room, with three stuck versions of Russell and Eastman: Russell and Phill Niblock’s “Terrace of Uninticibility” (1985); Andy de Groat and accompanying dancers of “the holy presence of Joan d’Arc” in the legendary – and still operational – nyc non -profit the kitchen in 1981; And a cellop performance of the earlier Eastman piece, mixed and recorded last year. Their display phases countless connections between the couple, even between compositions that they did not develop together. In “Terrace of Onintbility”, Russell’s repetitive, almost non -deciphering vocals are similar to Eastman’s “Joan d’Arc”, who plays an operating cocalist who repeats the words “he says” and “she says” until the sentences themselves sound as abstract as a cello.
Eastman and Russell are both known for their avant-garde, artistic autonomy, but the Redcat exhibition reveals both in curation and in content how much of their work was dependent on a huge, ultimately unstable network of social, financial and institutional support. The central audiovisual installation is bleeding over the rest of the exhibition and bends a ring of more historical, explanatory displays with the immainable thrum of Russell and Eastman’s music. A small part of this is dedicated to Eastman’s from 1978 from performing Russell’s piece “Instrumentals” in the kitchen. The implementation uses the New York orchestra, a result of the short duration Extensive employment and training law (CETA), a federal program that offered funds and jobs for artists in the public sector. After the withdrawal of the law in 1982, and struggles with addiction, Eastman died in 1990, steeped in that knowledge, Russell, Eastman and the orchestra of the performance of New York feels melancholy, his sporadic drumbeats, flashes and horns who cooperate for a too enemy.
Also in the exhibition there are countless works of art, compositions and musical scores of other artists: a video work by Justin Leroy appears in addition to a recording of the reverence of electronic musician Julia Holter 2009 to Arthur Russell, “You & Me both” and across the Lies “Devendra Banharts” (2025). This overwhelming range of work reveals the extent of the influence of Eastman and Russell on a generation of musicians, artists and curators – even if they don’t live to see it.
Julius Eastman and Arthur Russell Continue in Redcat Calarts Theater (631 West 2nd Street, Los Angeles, California) up to and including 4 May. The exhibition was organized in collaboration with La Phil Insight and Wild Up. It was compiled by Katy Dammers with Elizabeth Cline, Talia Heiman, Mark McNeill, Christopher Rountree and Julia Ward.
