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The Fibrous Body
instrumental aggregate for music
The Fibrous Body was premiered at the Market Gallery, Temporary Contemporary, within the Queensgate Market in Huddersfield on January 17, 2019. It was co-produced by the Temporary Contemporary Gallery and New Weird Huddersfield. The performers were:
Federico Pozzer (Recorder), Jo Kennedy (Glockenspiel), Fiona Pacey (Voice), Paul Mill (Guitarron), Irine Røsnes (Violin), Ruairidh Pattie (Bass Viol), Abi Bliss (Violin), David Badger (MS20), Scott Mc Laughlin (Cello), Robin Smith (Alto Saxaphone), Daoud Al-Janab (Trombone), Linda Jankowska (Violin), Colin Frank (Glockenspiel), Anna Peaker (Electronic Keyboard), Eleanor Cully (Voice and Piano), Kate Bostock (Cello), Chris Ruffoni (Trumpet), and Jorge Boehringer (Viola).
This concert, and the works of Dale Holmes which it accompanied, where created in memory of Rosa Luxembourg and her partner Karl Liebknecht, assassinated 100 years ago this year. The event commemorated the much belated funerals of Rosa and Karl, and in particular, speculated about the content of the graveside eulogy given by Carl Einstein, later arrested for his presence at the funeral.
In addition to my own piece, I curated a programme of sonic responses for the evening including an electronic set by John Robin Bold (https://b-o-l-d.bandcamp.com/) and a site-sensitive partially improvised performance of sound and text by The Fucks entitled Spontinuous Einstein-Luxemburg Spartacus at the Monument to Carl Einstein.
The following text was circulated before the event to provide some context and give information about the visual and text art works on display in the gallery:
January 2019 marks the centenary of the murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht by members of the freikorps in Berlin, Germany. Rosa’s body was dumped in the Landwehrkanal and not retrieved for many months. On 13 June 1919, a memorial was held. At the ceremony, there were a number of graveside orations. One was given by the art theorist and writer Carl Einstein. Einstein’s contribution has been the subject of some confusion. The contemporary reports of the event named Carl Einstein using only his surname, leading many commentators to assume that the ‘Einstein’ of the reports was the physicist Albert Einstein. This case of misrecognition or mistaken identity is one of a number that occur across the inventory of Carl Einstein’s biography. In addition, there is no record of the content of Carl Einstein’s oration.
Collecting a broad range of contributions under the title The Graveside Orations of Carl Einstein,each contribution is a speculation on what Carl Einstein might have delivered, each as likely and as unlikely to be Carl Einstein’s as any other, each a case of mistaken identity.
Dale Holmes is an artist researcher and Senior lecturer at the University of Huddersfield. His practice is situated at the intersections of painting, performance and sculpture. His current research is an exploration of the work and precarious biography of Carl Einstein (1885–1940)and the potential of long distance endurance cycling as an accelerated psycho-geography and a site for meta-sculptural thinking.
MA BIBLIOTHÈQUE is the imprint of artist, writer, and editor, Sharon Kivland. It was established in 2013. Her publications are modest yet attractive. The imprint has grown unexpectedly. The editor considers reading as both a virtue and a duty. She invites authors she considers to be good readers. She agrees with Nabokov that a good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader, is a re-reader. She knows her writers and they know her, even when they have not yet met. They have read each other, or believe themselves to have done so. They are flirtatious, ruffling pages. She likes those who do not hesitate to buy the books she publishes, but under certain circumstances will make excuses for those who do not. She promises to do her best. The best is reading.
