A Musical Conversation with Steve Parker
Steve Parker is an American artist, musician, and curator based in Austin, Texas. He is the curator of SoundSpace at the Blanton Museum of Art, Executive Director of Collide Arts, and a faculty member at UTSA. He holds degrees in Math and Music from Oberlin, Rice, and UT Austin. In 2019, he was commissioned by KMFA to create a long-term installation called Sound Garden in the radio station's new building.
Parker works with salvaged musical instruments, amateur choirs, marching bands, urban bat colonies, flocks of grackles, and pedicab fleets to investigate systems of control, interspecies behavior, and forgotten histories. His projects include elaborate civic rituals for humans, animals, and machines; listening sculptures modeled after obsolete surveillance tools; and cathartic transportation symphonies for operators of cars, pedicabs, and bicycles.
Parker has exhibited and performed internationally at institutions, public spaces, and festivals.. Highlights include the American Academy in Rome (Italy), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (Arkansas), CUE Art Foundation (NY), the Fusebox Festival (Austin), Gwangju Media Art Festival (Korea), the Guggenheim Museum (NY), the Lincoln Center Festival (NY), Los Angeles Philharmonic inSIGHT (LA), the Lucerne Festival (Switzerland), MASS MoCA (Massachusetts), the McNay Art Museum (San Antonio), Rich Mix (London), SXSW, and Tanglewood. As a soloist and as an artist of NYC-based "new music dream team" Ensemble Signal, he has premiered 200+ new works.
He has won numerous awards and fellowships, including the Rome Prize, the Tito's Prize, a Fulbright Fellowship, and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Copland Foundation, the Puffin Foundation, and the Mid-America Arts Alliance.
I had the pleasure and honor of asking Steve how art and music have changed his life, his recent exhibit at the CUE Foundation, what makes an exhibit different or similar to a musical concert, and so much more.
Steve’s artwork is Currently on view at the Sound Garden, KMFA Studios, Austin, TX. Dream Job, Ivester Contemporary, Austin, TX. And his most recent exhibits have been at Organ Music, Ivester Contemporary, Austin, TX, Sept 2022, CraftTexas 2022, and Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Sept 2022. He has an upcoming exhibit, FIGHT SONG, Art League Houston, TX, Dec 2022.
UZOMAH: What made you also want to be a curator?
STEVE: Working as a curator grew out of a desire to create new contexts for performances. I also really enjoy learning more about other artists’ practices and work, and organizing performances is a great way to do this. Finally, it’s fulfilling to contribute to the local arts ecosystem in a small way by helping others to realize their work.
U: What advice do you have for artists submitting to a group or solo show from a curator’s point of view?
S: One of the best pieces I’ve received is to spare no effort in documenting one’s work. Most people won’t see your work in person, and they will likely only see it through a screen. It’s also incredibly important to be able to express oneself clearly with the written word. I also view this as an important part of the artistic process: painting a picture of a proposed exhibition is a great way to refine one’s vision.
Bluescycle, 2019, Brass, steel, rubber, aluminum, 14’x10’x8’
U: How much does that help you curate for other artists as an artist yourself?
S: I think the benefit goes both ways: I understand the artist’s needs as one myself, and when I’m working with a curator, I can empathize with their challenges.
Kyrie, 2020, reclaimed organ pipes, copper plumbing, vinyl tubing, fireplace bellows.
U: What is the curator’s duty to the artist in how they present and decide what art to select for the given show?
S: I think the curator must support the artist's vision in whatever that means for each person and provide a platform, a context, and any operational support needed.
Ghost Box, 2018. Salvaged brass, tactical maps, scores on paper, wires, map pins, electronics, audio, instrument case. 19’x8’x6”
U: Can you speak about your recent exhibition at the CUE Foundation and what was the inspiration behind the theme?
S: Futurist Listening at CUE took the form of sonic headwear, acoustic sculptures built from brass instruments, and graphic scores, all of which build upon World War II audio tactics such as jamming signals, coded messages, and warning sirens, reimagining them in sculptural form as vehicles for present-day protest and deception.
These systems were mapped out across the gallery with trumpet pipes welded into sprawling abstract lines, diagrammed and layered on paper scores, or compiled into looming brass speakers and noise intoners. In the piece ASMR Étude, I recreated wearable acoustic locators through which one can hear popular Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, or ASMR, recordings made to treat anxiety, PTSD, and insomnia. Another piece, titled Ghost Box, required visitors to activate the sculpture through touch, initiating different looped audio clips of coded songs from the Underground Railroad, coded transmissions like Morse Code, and jamming signals of Soviet Russia and Communist China. Together, these constructions charted a multitude of possible choreographies for each listener to embody their sonic components, implicating the listener’s body as a site for receiving and issuing calls to action. Engaging auditory tools associated with early twentieth-century political conflict and war, the work invited viewers to listen closely to the ways that sound can be used to incite resistance, disrupt systems of control, and ease anxiety and illness.
U: Does your degree in math influence how you see art and create it? If so, how?
S: Yes -- Mathematics can be a very slow, solitary pursuit, and the same can be true for working in the studio. Lots of time alone.
Foghorn Elegy, 2021. Salvaged brass, hazard lights, steel, electronics, wood, acrylic paint, audio samples of brass instruments, copper plumbing.
U: How do you use musical instruments visually to give a different effect through your art than what they are typically known for audio-wise and visually?
S: I'm very interested in finding ways to blur the lines between sculpture, composition, and performance, and I've found that recombined instrument parts help me to explore this territory most directly.
ASMR Etude, 2018, Brass, plastic, copper, speakers, and recorded voices. Dimensions vary.
U: What makes a gallery exhibit similar or different from a concert in presenting a work of art?
S: Any work of art is dependent on context — nothing exists in a vacuum. I think it’s important that the work is in direct dialogue with its context.
U: How have art and music changed your life?
S: It’s allowed me to meet countless interesting and inspiring people and afforded me the ability to have a varied career. I’m always doing something new and learning new things.
For more information about Steve’s artwork please visit his site.
