Henry Flynt: Solo Electric Boogie (1979/2017) - LIVE at ISSUE / April 7th, 2017

Performance
Friday, April 7th, 2017

ISSUE Project Room
22 Boerum Place, Brooklyn

On Friday, April 7th, ISSUE gathers a group of artists who all shared a friendship with Tony Conrad, and a deep devotion to his music and art. In honor of Tony, who passed away on April 9th, 2016, Spectral Density is an evening of music and expression that sees original works by Henry Flynt, Dan Conrad, and Arnold Dreyblatt, as well as a performance of Tony’s Three Loops for Performers and Tape Recorders (1961) by Lary 7. The evening is curated by Tony’s close friend and 2010 ISSUE Artist-In-Residence MV Carbon.

Longtime ISSUE Project Room friend, collaborator and Board Member Tony Conrad (1940 – 2016) was a true polymath: composer, filmmaker, video artist, media activist, philosopher, writer, and educator. Amongst his countless contributions to experimental culture, Tony was associated with the founding of minimal music and underground film -- well known for drafting post-Cagean music compositions and text pieces, video works such his his 1966 film masterwork The Flicker, and collaborations with artists such as Henry Flynt, Jack Smith, Faust, and—as part of legendary drone ensemble Theatre of Eternal Music—La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela, and John Cale. He performed and exhibited extensively, influenced countless artists, and was loved widely -- a profound and inspiring creative legacy. Tony was also a founding member of the ISSUE Project Room Board and a fundamental part of the ISSUE family.

This event is part of a series planned by Greene Naftali with friends, family, curators, and collaborators of Tony, including concerts and screenings at venues such as The Kitchen, Anthology Film Archives, Knockdown Center and ISSUE Project Room. The series centers around a memorial the afternoon of Saturday, April 8th, at the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center. The memorial will feature speeches, videos, and musical performances from artists and writers that were close to Tony. For more information, please see: tonyconrad.memorial/

Henry Flynt is a philosopher, musician, and exhibited artist. He was born in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1940. At the age of 17, he was accepted into Harvard where he studied mathematics and became close friends with Tony Conrad. Henry became interested in composing “serious modern music” at that time and concluded that academics had little to offer him intellectually. He dropped out of school to devote his time to creative endeavors. He has created a genre he calls New American Ethnic Music which combines sounds from the South with an avant-garde influence. Henry was an active part of the post-Cage milieu in the 1960s and realized the term “concept art.” He is known for his political and artistic expressions in the 60s. He picketed two museums and Lincoln Center with Tony Conrad and Jack Smith. Flynt sat in for violist John Cale for a handful of Velvet Underground concerts in 1966. He studied with Hindustani singer Pandit Pran Nath, the mentor of La Monte Young and Terry Riley. Flynt graduated from NYU in 1970, then entered the New School as a graduate student in economics. Flynt’s work is interwoven with the study of mathematics, philosophy, spirituality, politics and economics. Flynt has releases dating back to 1963, Acoustic Hillbilly Jive. Archival recordings were released in the early 2000s on labels Ampersand, Locust, and Recorded. Flynt has infrequently performed in public.