Music composition #3

The exhibition Music Compositions shows a new series of works created by George Koutsouris, during his residency at the Danish Art Workshops in August – October 2023.

In these complex wall sculptures, various wood pieces coexist with numerous overlapping strings, creating ‘abstract’ three-dimensional paintings/reliefs that refer to musical instruments and musical symbols. The idea for these works was first conceived in 2021, when Koutsouris reached the final round at the competition for a permanent work for the new Music School at Rødovre, Denmark. His proposal was about a 5 m long relief, that would be implemented in the same materials, wood, strings, and steel components. The proposal did not win the competition but gave Koutsouris the idea of developing smaller finished works where he could explore the possibilities, the technical challenges as well as their visual narrative.

Koutsouris has created musical instruments and sound sculptures in the past, which are kinetic or interactive. However, this time he tries to represent sound and musicality only visually, in works which are static, not interactive, and silent, but can still reveal all the dynamics and tensions present in musical literature. Different types of strings have been used (steel, brass, copper etc.) which refer to various musical instruments, but now acting as visual ‘line’ elements, that Koutsouris uses to ‘paint’ on his three-dimensional wooden ‘canvas’.

For this project, Koutsouris has used almost all machines available at the wood workshop to process solid wood and create the overlapping figures on his reliefs. To obtain high-quality thin wood pieces, he even created his own plywood from scratch by pressing sheets of wood veneer together. To begin with, the reliefs were designed and arranged on the computer, cut at the CNC machine, and processed further for the final finish and individual composition.

The project was built at the Danish Art Workshops and was supported by Statens Kunstfond.