BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Kennedy Center -- Exhibit: Beethoven Symphonies Abstracted (by Mo Willems)

DC -- Kennedy Center -- Exhibit: Beethoven Symphonies Abstracted (by Mo Willems):

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Description of Pictures: Beethoven Symphonies Abstracted: Mo Willems
Hall of Nations
Inspired by the genius of Ludwig van Beethoven, inaugural Kennedy Center Education Artist-in-Residence Mo Willems exhibits a series of large-scale abstractions influenced by each of the composer’s nine symphonies. This is your chance to “see” music and “hear” art!
“The artist may get to create the work—but the audience gets to create the meaning.”
-- MO WILLEMS

To accompany the National Symphony Orchestra’s Beethoven & American Masters concert series, author and illustrator Mo Willems presents Beethoven Symphonies Abstracted, an exhibition of nine large-scale, painted abstractions inspired by the music and genius of Beethoven. Each large-scale work is a response to one of Beethoven’s nine symphonies, divided into panels that visually interpret each symphonic movement. The length of the movement determines the size of the panel, and so the length of the symphony determines the size of the painted abstraction. Taken as a whole, the nine works’ visual elements change and grow, reflecting the dynamic changes inherent in Beethoven’s symphonic career. But, at the center of everything is the circle, symbolizing the journey of musical notes.
Willems’ exhibit is designed to invite audiences to experience Beethoven in a new way—as listeners and also viewers. In addition to the exhibition, NSO concert attendees will receive a limited-edition commemorative exhibition catalogue of all the abstractions as a special keepsake and to reference and reflect upon as the symphonies are performed during each concert.
“Beethoven’s magnificent work invites contemplation and participation. Symphonic music is an abstraction to be discovered,” says Willems. “Like all abstraction, the artist may create the work, but the audience creates the meaning and that meaning can change over time.”
The nine works will be on display from January 8–March 20 in the Hall of Nations during the Center’s public operating hours. The painted abstractions associated with Symphony No. 1 through 8 are each 60Ľ" x 40Ľ" (height by width), while the longest symphony—Symphony No. 9—is larger at 74⅛" x 40Ľ". Willems provides his own notes and context in the exhibit, but viewers are encouraged to seek out their own interpretations of both art and music.

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[1] KCBEET_220206_03.JPG	[2] KCBEET_220206_10.JPG	[3] KCBEET_220206_14.JPG
[4] KCBEET_220206_19.JPG	[5] KCBEET_220206_25.JPG	[6] KCBEET_220206_30.JPG
[7] KCBEET_220206_33.JPG	[8] KCBEET_220206_37.JPG	[9] KCBEET_220206_40.JPG
[10] KCBEET_220206_44.JPG	[11] KCBEET_220206_51.JPG	[12] KCBEET_220206_58.JPG
[13] KCBEET_220206_64.JPG	[14] KCBEET_220206_69.JPG	[15] KCBEET_220206_80.JPG
[16] KCBEET_220206_85.JPG

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. KCBEET_220206_10.JPG: Symphony No. 8 APPROX. 25 MINUTES 60Ľ" x 40Ľ" Mixed media on paper Often said to be the ‘funny’ symphony, Beethoven’s eighth has a light playful tone. The second movement is said to spoof a brand-new gadget that became the rage in Vienna, the metronome (a kind of musical ‘app’ that rendered having a sense of rhythm redundant). The colors in this painting evoke the work of Alexander Calder, a personal hero and the funniest of the serious abstract artists of the last century.
2. KCBEET_220206_19.JPG: Symphony No. 7 APPROX. 38 MINUTES 60Ľ" x 40Ľ" Mixed media on paper Pretty much the platonic ideal of the symphony form, Beethoven’s seventh has become a personal favorite. There is a dramatic grandeur mixed with a light touch that always surprises, even if one listens to it over and over for many, many months... Creating this abstraction was also filled with surprises. The designs journeyed far and wide over a series of drafts, touching on Norse inspired voyages, art deco materials, and Japanese wood block prints.
3. KCBEET_220206_25.JPG: Symphony No. 5 APPROX. 30 MINUTES 60Ľ" x 40Ľ" Mixed media on paper Beethoven’s music achieved the immortality he desired with the first four notes of this symphony. The notes shocked and reverberated like an electric power-cord when it was first performed, and still do today. Consequently, the representation of the first movement demanded a new shape, fundamentally different, yet universal. This is the first time that gold leaf is used in any of the paintings.
4. KCBEET_220206_30.JPG: Symphony No. 3 APPROX. 50 MINUTES 60Ľ" x 40Ľ" Mixed media on paper The third symphony is considered one of Beethoven’s greatest musical innovations. It celebrates ‘heroic’ conquests and martial glory as embodied by Napoleon Bonaparte. At least it did until the French dictator invaded Austria and Ludwig changed his mind about him. The painting’s final movement evokes Napoleon’s famous tri-corner hat knocked over, a literal tip of the hat to Beethoven having angrily scratched Napoleon’s name off the score’s title page and renaming it ‘Eroica.’
5. KCBEET_220206_33.JPG: Symphony No. 1 APPROX. 27 MINUTES 60Ľ" x 40Ľ" Mixed media on paper Each panel in this work represents a symphonic ‘movement.’ The panels’ sizes are determined by the length of the movement. If the whole sheet of paper represents an hour, then you can see that the first symphony’s four sections take a little under half an hour to be performed. Just as Beethoven is obviously beholden to his predecessors, Haydn and Mozart, in his first symphony, this painting borrows liberally from constructivism, an early, formal abstraction style.
6. KCBEET_220206_37.JPG: Symphony No. 2 APPROX. 33 MINUTES 60Ľ" x 40Ľ" Mixed media on paper The sections of a symphony are called ‘movements’ because the music should ‘move’ you. Similarly, I want the images in each symphony to look as if they are alive and in transit. As Beethoven loosens up in his second symphony, so does this painting, with the fundamental circles (or notes?) being guided throughout the work in and on waves of colored ink. It is the circles’ journeys that connect all nine paintings.
7. KCBEET_220206_44.JPG: Symphony No. 4 APPROX. 33 MINUTES 60Ľ" x 40Ľ" Mixed media on paper A typical symphony will have a strictly ‘fast’ movement followed by a strictly ‘slow’ movement. Beethoven is too restless for that. He fully explores his musical ideas in all tempos and volume, much as a scientist approaches a question from multiple angles. Like a good scientist, Ludwig’s skill is always underlined by a sense of wonder. The fourth symphony found me visiting and exploring different environments that turned out to be connected.
8. KCBEET_220206_51.JPG: Symphony No. 6 APPROX. 39 MINUTES 60Ľ" x 40Ľ" Mixed media on paper The sixth, known as the Pastoral, is Ludwig’s least abstract symphonic work. Meant to symbolize the restorative delights of a visit to the country, each movement represents a sound picture (a road leading from city to village, a babbling brook, locals dancing, a storm, dawn). This is the first abstraction to incorporate pencil, an essential tool for sketching ideas when artists and composers leave the studio for the country.
9. KCBEET_220206_85.JPG: Symphony No. 9 APPROX. 70 MINUTES 74⅛" x 40Ľ" Mixed media on paper Ludwig throws everything at us in the ninth. His longest symphony, it even includes a choral movement, a symphonic first. Much like the later abstract expressionists that the first three panels of this work reference (Pollock, Frankenthaler), Beethoven seems confident enough in his creation not to care what his audience thinks. The final movement’s sense of spiritual enlightenment is represented by a series of simple silver disks, that spell the word JOY in braille.
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