Maria Chávez at Rozz-Tox -- October 12.
Saturday, October 12, 8 p.m.
Rozz-Tox, 2108 Third Avenue, Rock Island IL
A nominee for Germany's prestigious Preis der deutschen schallplattenkritik prize, awarded to an artist who embodies "the most rigorous standards for supreme achievement and quality" in the field of music recording, the New York City-based artist Maria Chávez headlines an intimate concert set at Rock Island venue Rozz-Tox on October 12, her accolades also including being the recipient of the Jerome Foundation’s Emerging Artist Grant by NYC's Roulette Intermedium in 2008.
An improviser, curator and sound artist born 1980 in Lima, Peru, Chávez and her family moved to Texas when she was two years old. By age 16, she began working with sound and turntables, with her sound installations, visual objects, and live turntable performances now focusing on the values of the accident and its unique, complicated possibilities with sound emitting machinery like the turntable. Influenced by improvisation in contemporary art, Chávez's work extends outside of the sound world to straddle varied disciplines of interest. The sound installations and live turntable performances of Chávez focus on the paradox of time and the present moment, with many influences stemming from improvisation in contemporary art.
For her experimental turntablism, the artist uses new and broken needles (the latter of which she refers to as "perfect to ruin" needles), on a collection of vinyl she uses to build a sound palette. Chávez's compositions are created for specific locations, and their acoustic characteristics allow for the ambiguity of reverberation, reflection, and refraction to enter into each composition. Chávez was an artist in residence with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, the Clocktower and the Dia:Beacon Museum, has been an artist in residence at Issue Project Room, and played in Christian Marclay's Screenplay at the Whitney Museum in 2010. In 2012, Chávez published her first book Of Technique: Chance Procedures on Turntable, which she wrote and illustrated herself. The book serves as a how-to manual for those interested in learning the abstract turntablism techniques that she developed with the turntable. While this book is considered the first sound-related release by Chávez since her solo album release in 2004, the Macro label, in 2019, released an album by the artist based on treatments of the empty locked grooves of a vinyl record by Stefan Goldmann.
Maria Chávez performs her headlining concert in Rock Island on October 12 with an additional set by Bob Bucko Jr., admission to the all-ages 8 p.m. event is $12-18, and more information and tickets are available by calling (309)200-0978 and visiting RozzTox.com.
