Eli Keszler “Echea”

Galerie Pepe is pleased to present Echea an exhibition by artist, composer and percussionist Eli Keszler (b. Boston, MA).

April 11th – June 15th, 2024

I’m a musician and composer by trade, but I’ve been feeling a little bored lately. So when Pepe proposed doing an exhibition of visual art at his gallery, I took the chance. The natural if predictable move for me was to “explore the link” between music and art.

On my daily trips across lower Manhattan from my apartment to the studio, I began looking for inspiration. It’s always been “ground zero” down here for all sorts of new and interesting developments, for lack of a better phrase. These days, the first thing you notice is the migrants spilling into Tompkins Square Park from the nearby St. Brigid intake center. There was an earthquake in New York on Friday. And an eclipse on Monday. It’s exhilarating to think we’re living in “end times,” but most likely the show just goes on.

In Echea, the figures are conjoined yet disjointed. Men and women, young and old. Adults are children, and children are adults. It’s all the same. The barren and washed-out American landscapes speak for themselves. Child soldiers, broken homes, American flags, Bald Eagles, aging bodies on display, all sorts of unusual groupings and paranoid inner realities. I worked both slowly and quickly on these pieces, taking my time coming up with the initial “concepts” and then smearing and rubbing graphite and wax onto the image surfaces.

“Echea” comes from the Greek word for “sounding vase.” Traditionally, these ceramic vessels were used to amplify sound in temples and, later, churches. In antiquity, the vessels were designed to be proportional with Greek modes, acting as a kind of early “sound system.” In other words, each vessel corresponds sympathetically to a unique tone in the Greek scale.

Produced in collaboration with ceramicist and sound artist Reuben Son, the sculpture in the gallery is fitted with ceramic tongues and hidden speakers. The sounds they emit resonate throughout the space and harmonize with the surroundings. Quiet at first, distant, and a little uncanny, they lend an air of innocence to the work.

Personally, I’ve always enjoyed the relationship between the “generative” and the degenerate. “Ugly Beauty,” the title of one of my favorite Thelonious Monk songs, sums it up well. There’s a point where the two inevitably meet. To be a true environmentalist, you have to love garbage. I’m just trying to watch it burn in peace.

Eli Keszler