Saturday 5 October 2013,7pm–7am
Monnaie de Paris
11 quai de Conti
75006 Paris
France
One year before its reopening in 2014, la Monnaie de Paris is already creating a sensation. As part of Paris’s Nuit Blanche, and as a foretaste of its future programme of exhibitions, Monnaie de Paris is offering a vision of the artwork of the future by presenting German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen‘s most daring composition.
Chiara Parisi, Cultural Programmes Director at Monnaie de Paris and Artistic Director with Julie Pellegrin of the Nuit Blanche 2013, has chosen to produce Stockhausen‘s Helikopter-Streichquartett for the first time in France. This historic performance, where each performer of a string quartet plays simultaneously while being individually located in a flying helicopter, is interpreted by the Elysian Quartet and will be viewable live via liveweb.art.tv on smartphones or tablets from 6:35pm.
The helicopters will fly by the Seine banks between 7 and 7:10pm and over Monnaie de Paris and Pont Neuf at 7:04pm. The live performance will then be rebroadcast all night long on giant screens in Monnaie de Paris’s great hall.
Incredibly difficult to produce, the greatest musical “performance” of the 20th century has become legendary in the music and contemporary art worlds. Its scale, original character, intense blend of violinists and helicopters and setting in the heart of Paris over the former “grand bassin,” where staged naval battles were once held for royal entertainment, will undoubtedly mean that this performance will be remembered as one of Paris’s most exceptional and unforgettable events.
Conceived as a huge sound sculpture, this composition reflects the composer’s spiritual preoccupations and cosmic vision: his desire to elevate himself. By revisiting the classic structure of the string quarter and by transforming the helicopters’ flight into a score, Stockhausen pushed back the boundaries of the possible in the field of creation.
Also on 5th October, Monnaie de Paris will lend its bells to Martin Creed‘s performance of All The Bells – Work No. 1676, in which all the bells in Paris, be they religious, public, or personal in nature, monumental or diminutive in size, will ring at 7pm for a duration of three minutes.
Two new artist medals have also been designed by M/M, incorporating these figures’ most importantworks. These two medals join the collection which began with Rob Pruitt, Mohamed Bourouissa and Michelangelo Pistoletto and will be available at the price of two euros at Monnaie de Paris, the Théâtre du Châtelet, the Gaité Lyrique, the Town Hall of the 4th Arrondissement, at the Maison des métallos and at the Point Ephémère exclusively during the Nuit Blanche.
Dynamic and diverse, the Nuit Blanche 2013 will follow the flow by orchestrating different streams and currents. Taking Paris more as a landscape than a mere backdrop, the artists participating in this Nuit Blanche will offer aesthetic, political and sensational happenings, in which sound, movement, action and our relationship with others celebrate the experience of the moment. The works will focus on the ephemeral magic that is so particular to this unique nocturnal adventure.
Featuring: Chantal Akerman, Yuri Ancarani, Rosa Barba, Neil Beloufa, Martin Creed, Dector & Dupuy, Didier Faustino, Alberto García-Alix, Liam Gillick, Édouard Glissant and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Donatien Grau, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Cai Guo-Qiang, Huang Yong Ping, Hassan Khan, M/M, Avi Mograbi, Gianni Motti, Fujiko Nakaya, Palle Nielsen, Phill Niblock, Kristin Oppenheim, Michael Portnoy, RAMradioartemobile, Robin Rhode, Salon Light by Night, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Thorsten Streichardt, Jan St. Werner & Black Manual, Gisèle Vienne, Marie Voignier, Peter Watkins, Virginie Yassef and artists on the decks (Davide Bertocchi, Chiara Fumai, Kolkoz, Samon Takahashi and Xavier Veilhan)
Director of Communication:
Guillaume Robic
T + 33 (0)1 40 46 58 18
guillaume.robic [at] monnaiedeparis.fr
Press contact:
Claudine Colin Communication
Léa Levkovetz
T + 33 (0)1 42 72 60 01
lea [at] claudinecolin.com
The Paris production of Helikopter-Streichquartett will be carbon offset, enabling the support of greenhouse-gas-efficient development projects with EcoAct.
