Tim Spelios and Matt Freedman: Once Upon A Broken Time

About

Using the oldest and simplest of story telling tools, sticks and drums to give impetus and rhythm, and charcoal and paper to fill in the details, Tim Spelios and Matt Freedman will embark on a month of story telling. The stories will be drawn and told by Freedman, but they will take their irregular rhythm and form from the aberrant and improvised syncopation of Spelios’ broken time drumming. This ongoing project will be divided into eight performances. Every Friday at 8pm and Sunday at 5pm during the run of the show Spelios and Freedman will tell another story.

It is not true that every story has to start somewhere, any more than it is true that every story has to end somewhere. In fact, the more we try to tell any single story, the more confused we get. There is always something to add, a more ancient originating moment, an illuminating aside, a surprising consequence that puts things in proper perspective. It’s silly almost, to even begin to tell one particular story, because the singularity of such a thing is a presumptuous notion. No story exists in isolation, but oddly enough that’s the reason we have to tell stories as if they do stand alone. We pull details out of a morass of coincidence and irrelevance and construct narratives designed to show that the universe works in some understandable, meaningful way. No less persuasive than magic or religion, as compelling as science, the secular act of story telling makes meaning where there is none and gives purpose where there is no point.

Matt Freedman and Tim Spelios

The installation includes eight different mutable drum sets, one for each performance that Tim Spelios has used in musical performances; some built as functional sculptures. In addition there will be 30 stools built for the exhibition for the audience to use each night in various configurations depending on the location of the performance. The 20-40 drawings that Matt Freedman produces for each performance will collect in the gallery for the remainder of the exhibition. Some will be framed and some will just be pinned to the walls. The room will gradually fill up with the detritus of all the stories.

Schedule of storytelling performances:

1. Bee Dance (3/13)
2. Paleo Camera (3/15)
3. Miracle in Chinon (3/20)
4. Con-trap-tion (3/22)
5. Vaudeville Houdini (3/27)
6. Chekhov's Gun (3/29)
7. Miss Pliss and the Crusader Fruitbowl (4/3) 8. Flushing (4/5)

Please note that the order of the performances and the titles are subject to change. For more information and images, please contact Annelie McGavin at (718) 852-4396