Ode to Galesburg

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Ode to Galesburg is a 2015 album by Stephen Prina. The album is part of his exhibition "galesburg, illinois+".

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Background

Petzel Gallery press release

Streaming through the gallery, Prina’s thirteen-track sound installation Ode to Galesburg forms the emotional heart of the project. The music has an alluring effect in the exhibition space and is an invitation to linger. This is a concept album that Prina sings to us, containing folk songs from Carl Sandburg’s The American Songbag and a cover of a Carole King’s “It’s Too Late,” among others. His voice and the guitar sounds, but also the rattling of a passing train, fill the room from nine loudspeakers. [...]

Track list

Title Notes
1. "We'll Roll Back the Prices" From The Great Carl Sandburg: Songs of America (1957)
2. "Jay Gould's Daughter" From The Great Carl Sandburg: Songs of America (1957)
3. "Harbor Lights" (1937)
4. "He's Gone Away" From The Great Carl Sandburg: Songs of America (1957)[1]
5. "It's Too Late" From Carole King's Tapestry (1971)
6. "Roll the Old Chariot"
7. Lyrics from the New York Times' Quotation of the Day (January 2 – August 11, 2015)
8. "Lonesome Road"
9. "Harbor Lights" From Boz Scaggs' Silk Degrees (1976)
10. "Casey Jones" From The Great Carl Sandburg: Songs of America (1957)
11. "Cigarettes Will Spoil Yer Life" From The Great Carl Sandburg: Songs of America (1957)
12. Lyrics from the New York Times' Quotation of the Day (August 12–25, 2015)

Retrospectives

Stephen Prina, 2016[2]

By the time I got to this show I realised very early on in its conception that there was the potential for a music component. I wondered what it could and should be. It took me a while to follow that thread.

Reviews

Studio International

May 17, 2016[3]

Allie Biswas

Music also takes on a foundational role within the exhibition, with songs from Prina’s 13-track conceptual album Ode to Galesburg streaming through the gallery.

Art Observed

June 18, 2016

Echoing throughout the gallery is Ode to Galesburg, a thirteen-song cycle sung by Prina himself, playing through amplifiers also covered by the show’s repeating graphic motif.  Songs from fellow Galesburg native Carl Sandburg’s The American Songbag, as well as a cover of Carole King’s “It’s Too Late” and Prina’s humming of selections from New York Times’ “Quotations of the Day” segment usher the viewers around show.

KCRW

May 17, 2018

Prina uses this upholstery fabric as an improbable Proustian key to a past continually unfolding in his memory and in real time. The garish fabric is on a vitrine supporting a complete set of Sandburg’s Lincoln biography. Prina uses it as part of the frame around a black and white photograph of Sandburg posing with Marilyn Monroe, which was taken by Arnold Newman. [...] That upholstery fabric is integral to a wall sculpture of speakers playing Prina as he sings covers of various songs, some from the American folk tradition that interested Sandburg.

Art Catalogues

June 5, 2018[4]

Daniel Healey

The exhibition ties together a sparse but interconnected set of tables, swathes of upholstery fabric displays (Harbor Lights Supper Club insignia taken from a match book printed on fabric) painted frames, window screens, objects, photographs, paintings, giclee prints and music (self-made album Ode to Galesburg) playing in between a custom designed seating arrangement, speakers on opposite walls both facing cushions and seated viewers. Reminiscent of Martin Kippenberger's cover songs but perhaps more deadpan (less schlocky) is Prina's style and wit, maybe even sincere because he actually covered Carol King's "It's Too Late" while in high school, possibly in front of John Cage coincidentally.

[...] It's difficult to say whether or not the music is supposed to feel sincere or have emotional connection between the artist and his hometown, or lineage for the artifacts and memories it evokes, however the viewer might have the feeling that the songs act as a proxy for the heartbeat of Prina or for the town's spirit itself.

References