a purposeless play, a two-person exhibition with Guillermo Galindo and Mark Harris curated by Amber Stucke opened Friday, April 1st at Wave Pool. 

Wave Pool was pleased to present a two-person show with San Francisco based artist Guillermo Galindo and local artist Mark Harris. a purposeless play coupled these two artists’ disparate practices by considering and highlighting both of their works as contemporary avant-garde performance art. Even with their different approaches, both created a new alternative in how to listen, experience, and visualize music to engender a new meaning of counter culture in the twenty-first century. 

Inspired by John Cage’s words stated in his 1957 Experimental Music lecture, he described music as "a purposeless play" which is "an affirmation of life – not an attempt to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply a way of waking up to the very life we're living". Galindo and Harris’ work embody the ideas of Cage’s interaction with the alternative, experimental, unconventional and avant-garde. Each artist had a separate performance on the opening night of the exhibition. The objects used and left behind after each performance acted as the exhibition in the gallery space to reiterate the experience of the performance as the true art. 

7PM Performance by Mark Harris | Messthetics

Inspired out of his youth experiences in London, Harris intertwines painting and music as a dialogue and reflection for the experience of intense creativity and pleasure displayed by alienated and disenfranchised young people who protest against a means-end economy. Similar in format to his Bad Music Seminar series, Messthetics (a word used to categorize the procedures and sound of the post-punk DIY) brings the UK and US late-70’s punk rock milieus together to represent a new kind of utopian expression through vinyl and rumination. (Acknowledgements include: Shake it Records and the Ohio Arts Council) 

8PM Performance by Guillermo Galindo | The Primal Acoustics Healing Method (PAHM) 

Known as an experimental composer, sonic architect, performance artist and Jungian Tarotist, Galindo redefines the conventional boundaries of music and the practice of music composition. In his participant interactive performance PAHM, Galindo will conduct an interactive medical trial of an innovative sonic therapy with the sole purpose of relieving patients from psychotic disorders and anxieties caused by fear of alien agents threatening to weaken the sense of self. The performance will integrate methods of active imagination, digital recording, sample processing and primal genetic genofragmentation - using the human voice as a vehicle of resonance. 

The opening reception and performances were on Friday, April 1st at Wave Pool between 6:30- 9:30pm.

An artist talk took place at the Contemporary Arts Center on Saturday, April 2nd at 2pm.

Other events connected to this exhibition included:

-Thursday, March 31st, Start Anywhere, a selection of John Cage inspired films at the Mini Experimental Film Theater, Carnegie Art Center

-Saturday, April 2nd, Water Temples - Light Temples at the Mockbee building in Brighton.

A Purposeless Play will remain on view until May 7th. Wave Pool is open Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays 12-5pm.