John Cale Brings Wales to MoMA

Photo:"John Cale" by DJ Buck on Flickr courtesy of Creative Commons Licensing

John Cale made an appearance at MoMA this Monday after postponing a few months ago because of a stair climbing injury. Cale, a classically trained musician from Wales, made his name as a member of Andy Warhol's avant-guard rock group The Velvet Underground in the late 60's. He went on to produce albums by The Stooges, The Modern Lovers and Patti Smith in the 70s and had a strong career as a solo musician and composer. His talk at the museum, part of their Modern Mondays film screenings, did not center on music, but rather his latest venture--the visual arts.

The evening began with a clip of old game show "I've Got A Secret", which featured Cale as guest star "Mr. X". His Secret was that he has played a concert that lasted over 18 hours. This clip was received by laughs from the crowd, and showed a side of Cale before his Velvet Underground days. As the night went on we would learn more of his backstory, more of his life before his New York roots.

John Cale walked out from a door at the side of the theater, dressed in a polo and jeans, resembling a man very different from the one in the images of his youth. He jumped right into talking about the instillation he made for the Venice Biennal, which focused on his Welsh upbringing. The talk was confusing; the audience had not experienced the work he was speaking about. He began talking about listening to a house, his hobby of stair climbing and his childhood spend exploring the Black Mountains in Wales.

There were photographs to go along with his words but everything seemed disconnected. One minute he was speaking about his childhood and the next he was commenting on the orange beanie he wore while mountain climbing in his film." All you could see was that orange beanie" he said when talking about a particular scene. He eventually played some of the music he made for the installation. The music was filled with drone noise and lyrics about a home; his childhood home was one of the focuses of the piece. Climbing in the mountains of Wales was also a main point in the final installation. All together the work was shown on five screens, with five different films playing to different soundtracks.

Through speaking about his newest creative venture, Cale gave the audience an insight into his early life in Wales. He spoke of his resentment towards his grandmother, who forced him to speak Welsh even though his father spoke English. This meant he could not communicate with his father until learning English in school at age 7. He recalled a time his Mother was in hospital and he could only wave at her through a barbed wire fence. It seemed that his feelings toward his upbringing were mixed; he is proud of his country yet is haunted by his past.

While his talk was confusing and non-liner it was a different view into an artist's mind. Cale attempted to do something that seems impossible; he attempted to describe to an audience the process of creating a work they had never seen and through that, attempted to create a visual and audio image in the minds of those listening. " There are five screens so you are viewing like this," he said while moving around in a circle sporadically. " which is how I am in conversation," he continued, " I get up and move around." His thought patterns seemed to be moving around in confused circles, jumping from one point to another, but he was still able to convey the spirit of the work.

John Cale's talk would have been more coherent had the work been shown beforehand(there are currently no plans for the installation to come to America), but it served as a look into the way he thinks as an artist. Cale was able to bring Wales into that auditorium; he brought the images of the mountains, the droning sounds of a Welsh choir, and the ghosts that haunt his past out last night. His work is about place and experience, about where you came from and what of that place is still with you; this work speaks of John Cale's past in a way that everyone can relate, which makes it all the more chilling.

Photo From John Cale's Myspace Page http://www.myspace.com/johncaleofficialsite