CALVO, MANUEL - EL ARTILUGIO (LP)

"alga marghen very proudly presents the uncompromising "el artilugio", a previously unreleased sonic assault presented in 1968 under the auspices of Walter Marchetti's Zaj in Madrid. Manuel Calvo was a forerunner and a protagonist of geometric abstract painting in Spain between the 50s and the 60s. Back in Spain, in 1966 and 1967 he decided to become independent from the art system by opening a studio in Calle Alcantara in Madrid and transform it into a taller-exposición, or a laboratory where he could held a permanent exhibition of his works. A space open to public with no temporal limits aiming to reverse the functional paradigm of a standard exhibition space. Calvo was attracted by the idea of using light and movement as materials for his work, a principle originated from kinetic art which he discovered while in Paris some years earlier, and at the same time he wanted to criticize the mechanistic, repetitive and predictable process of cause and effect as the only factor activating people's perception in front of these kinetic artworks. With these premises Calvo created for this space El artilugio, a participatory permanent installation where the effects of light variations were randomly activated through simple buttons by a no-longer passive audience. This way the installation not only became an open structure with unlimited possibilities of random variations, but through the use of a reel-to-reel recording machine and a pre-recorded magnetic tape it also introduced a sound element, activated during the process, something that represented an absolutely new element within that cultural specific context. Issued in an edition limited to 250 copies, the full-color gatefold sleeve also includes an LP-size 8 page booklet with exclusive photos from the installation as well as a text by Gabriele Bonomo." (label info)