About the Artist

Ken Butler

Ken Butler studied viola as a child and maintained an interest in music while studying visual arts in France, at Colorado College, and at Portland State University where he completed his MFA in painting in 1977. He has received fellowships from the Oregon Arts Commission, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Ken’s works have been featured in numerous exhibitions and performances throughout the USA, Canada, and Europe including The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and Exit Art, Thread Waxing Space, The Kitchen, The Brooklyn Museum, Lincoln Center and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, as well as in galleries in South America, Thailand, and Japan. His works have been featured on PBS, CNN, MTV, and NBC, including a live appearance on The Tonight Show, and are represented in public and private collections in Portland, Seattle, Vail, Los Angeles, Toronto, Montreal, Washington, and New York City, including the permanent collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ken has performed with John Zorn, Laurie Anderson, Butch Morris, The Soldier String Quartet, Matt Darriau's Paradox Trio, The Tonight Show Band, and The Master Gnawa musicians of Morocco. His CD Voices of Anxious Objects is on Zorn’s Tzadik label.

The New Sound of Music: Hybrid Instruments by Ken Butler

March 30 - September 4, 2006

The New Sound of Music exhibit features hybrid musical instruments created by Ken Butler of Brooklyn, New York. Internationally recognized as an innovator of experimental sculptural instruments, Ken brings together a diversity of everyday materials including tools, sports equipment, and household objects. He has used boots for "violin" bodies, and turned floor mops and children's sleds into "cellos." He has meshed keyboards with a recycled wire shelves and spotlights to create an interactive musical light show.

Ken’s work explores the interaction and transformation of common objects, altered images, sounds and silence. He links objects that relate to each other visually and that suggest instruments, while the sounds they end up producing are by-products. Ken has said his work has “an ergonomic relationship” to the body, meaning that though they are made out of many protruding objects, he has taken into consideration how the instruments relate to a musician’s body.

Many of Ken’s instruments are playable and have been used in performances; others are enjoyed for their visual impact, with the sounds being imagined by viewers. The exhibit consists of playable and non-playable musical instruments of varying size and materials, many of which illustrate Ken’s admiration for Cubism.

Also featured in the exhibit is a mural created by local students in grades 6 to 10 who participate in ArtSHOP, the Kidspace after-school art program. With artist mentor and collage artist Karen Arp-Sandel, students have designed a textured, Cubist-style collage mural with references to music and musical instruments.

The exhibit includes a viewing area where the artist can be seen performing on video, as well as a listening station featuring Ken’s music on CDs. An art-making area offers visitors the opportunity to create their own musical instruments. A gallery brochure is provided for all visitors to learn more about the Kidspace exhibit, as well as to find other sound art at MASS MoCA.

Kidspace is a collaborative project of the Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute, Williams College Museum of Art, and MASS MoCA. Additional funding has been provided by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency); Massachusetts Cultural Council (a state agency); Brownrigg Charitable Trust in memory of Lynn Laitman; and Ruth E. Proud Charitable Trust. The Vermont Arts Council provided the Stamford School District with funding to support their involvement in Kidspace. Special funding for The New Sound of Music exhibition was received from Williams College’s Howard Hughes Medical Institution grant.

The New Sound of Music was organized by Kidspace Director of Exhibitions and Education Laura Thompson with Kidspace Education Coordinator Angela Roberts and Artist Ken Butler. Special thanks to the MASS MoCA staff for helping to design, promote, and install the exhibition

Curriculum was developed by Heidi Dugal, 6th grade teacher; Abbott Memorial Elementary School, Florida, MA; Debbie Nowicki, 4th / 5th grade teacher, Savoy Elementary School; Angela Roberts and Laura Thompson, Kidspace. Thanks to Heidi and Debbie for all their hard work and dedication to this project.