Samson Young: Real Music

Talbot Rice Gallery and the University of Edinburgh are proud to present the first solo exhibition in the UK by acclaimed Hong Kong artist and composer, Samson Young (b. 1979). At the heart of the exhibition is an ambitious collaboration with the University of Edinburgh’s Next Generation Sound Synthesis (NESS) research group, who have developed pioneering software that can generate the sound of virtual instruments. For historians this offers the opportunity to hear lost objects, while for Samson Young it is an opportunity to hear the impossible.

A new series of installations entitled Possible Music, 2018–ongoing, are borne from this encounter, the artist composing music for instruments that do not exist in reality. Possible Music #2, commissioned for the exhibition at Talbot Rice and Monash University Museum of Art, pushes the parameters of this technology by orchestrating the effects of scale, temperature and force. How would a bugle sound, for instance, if it was activated by the fiery breath of a dragon, superheated to 300 degrees Celsius? Within Young’s 16-channel sound garden, a field of speakers sprout towards the cupolas overhead, while mixed media sculptural forms allude to a colossal, oversized trumpet emerging from the carpeted earth. This impossible rendition is complimented by a new body of work on paper—colourful, textured graphic scores.

Talbot Rice Gallery will also premier a new video performance-lecture by Young entitled The world falls apart into facts generated from the artist’s extensive research into the Chinese folk song "Molihua" (Jasmine Flower). Tracing its different versions and their claims to authenticity, this work is a genealogical telling of the song’s story, with the artist adopting an ironic ethnographic gaze. Accompanying this are a number of items that derive from Young’s exploration of the University of Edinburgh’s collections, including Pieter Neefs the Elder's Interior of a Cathedral from the University’s Torrie Collection and a class of musical instruments often described as "tourist instruments" held at St Cecilia’s Hall.

The exhibition will include Muted Situation #22: Muted Tchaikovsky’s 5th, 2018 (commissioned by Sydney Biennale in 2017)—a 12-channel sound installation—in which an orchestra performs the work on muted instruments. Tchaikovsky’s 5th is replaced with the startling and powerful sound of the orchestra itself—pulsing, heaving and expressive as a physical, concentrated body.

The exhibition has been curated by Tessa Giblin, Director of Talbot Rice Gallery, and Charlotte Day, Director of Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne. Real Music will tour to MUMA May 2–July 4, 2020.

Real Music will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue available at Talbot Rice Gallery, Monash University Museum of Art and through Koenig Books.

Catalogue: Samson Young: Real Music
ISBN: 978-3-96098-645-4
Edition of 1000
Editors: Tessa Giblin and Charlotte Day
Design: Stuart Geddes and Žiga Testen
Language: English
Published by: Koenig Books, London, 2019

Possible Music #2 is commissioned by Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh; Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne with support from The Keir Foundation. Samson Young: Real Music is further supported by Creative Scotland, Edinburgh College of Art, Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne, Edouard Malingue Gallery and the Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre (vA!), Leisure and Cultural Services Department, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government. Part of Edinburgh Art Festival

Upcoming and On Tour
Currently on tour are the Talbot Rice exhibitions At the Gates, on view at La Criee in Rennes until 25 August with Maja Bajevic, Camille Ducellier, Monique Frydman, Navine G. Khan-Dossos, Jesse Jones, Teresa Margolles, Olivia Plender, Artists’ Campaign to Repeal the Eighth Amendment, during which the University of Edinburgh will confer upon Silvia Federici an honorary degree; and Borderlines (art in the age of Brexit) at The Edge, University of Bath, UK until 13 July with Lonnie van Brummelen & Siebren de Haan, Willie Doherty, Ruth E Lyons, Amalia Pica, Khvay Samnang, Santiago Sierra, Mona Vatamanu & Florin Tudor.

The Extended Mind will open at Talbot Rice on November 1, bringing University of Edinburgh research around the History of Distributed Cognition into dialogue with contemporary art. In September 2019, the five current Talbot Rice Residents will be joined by five new artists from across Scotland at Edinburgh College of Art, in a programme supporting emerging artists.

Stay in touch with us as we explore what the 16th century University of Edinburgh, together with Edinburgh College of Art can contribute to contemporary art production today and in the future.