“Musicanimale” Exhibition Catalog – Selection of the French Music Book Award

France Music Prize – Claude Samuel Book Select this book for La Selection 2023:

the book

When we realize that in fifty years 50% of the voices of the living will have disappeared, does it not become necessary to listen to and record these songs, and above all to reintroduce man into the symphony of the living? Halfway between music, art and science, work musicalanimal It investigates the phonemes of about forty genres, and above all the performances, through a rich collection of musical and artistic works, how much the songs of the living impress and inspire them, and how exciting the visual and vocal poetry.
Bird voices, concerts, chirping of insects, melodic songs of whales, choral howls of wolves … Do these manifestations, beyond their function of communication, constitute “animal music”? If so, what is the meaning of the word “music”? And, above all, how to understand, over the centuries, the more important place of the songs of the living in the artistic imagination of men? Between a wandering picture book and a cabinet of curiosities, this alphabet-shaped book shows the extraordinary influence of animal sounds on the history of art and music, and marks the disappearance of Slim’s heritage in peril.

authors

PhD in Art History, Graduate Musicology and Philosophy, Mary Pauline Martin Lecturer in the history of modern art at Aix-Marseille University. Since 2017 she has been seconded to the Philharmonie de Paris, where she directs the Musée de la Musique.
His research focuses particularly on the place of music in the arts system in the modern and contemporary periods. She has curated many exhibitions, incl Ludwig van: The Legend of Beethoven (Music Museum, 2016-2017), W Musicanimale: The wonderful sound of monsters (Music Museum, 2022-2023).

Jean Hubert Martin He is a major figure in contemporary art. An art historian by training, he was director of, among others, the Musée National de Arte Moderne of the city of Paris (1987 to 1990) and the Kunst-Museum Dusseldorf (1999 to 2006), artistic director of Oiron Castle (Deux-Sèvres) from 1991 to 1993, and curator of many exhibitions, incl Earth witches in 1989, One image can hide the other At the Grand Palais in 2009, the Third Biennale of Contemporary Art in Moscow or even the Lyon Biennale in 2000, Sharing oddities. In 2011, Christian Boltanski chose him to direct his pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

3 questions for the authors:

• What is the place of this book in your career? ?

The idea for this book finds its first roots in the research I have conducted, since my doctoral dissertation (2006), on the links between musical social communication and material cultures during the Enlightenment. Recently, after joining the Musée de la musique, she has begun in-depth work on the concept of the bird as a sound decoration in bourgeois interiors of the eighteenth century, and on the emergence of unique musical instruments: a bird that questions the relationship between man and animal in the Age of Enlightenment.

Furthermore, still at the Musée de la musique, I have for five years developed a collegiate research and programming program dedicated to intact biodiversity as a subject of historical study. Numerous events (such as “La Nuit du rossignol”) and cycles of concerts, conferences or exhibitions have served as a testing ground for this book. Not only did these projects allow me to test a singular methodology for this work (it sits between the history of science, the history of music, and the history of art); But they also enlivened the discovery of an abundant body of art and music that attests to the long-term place of animal song in the artistic imagination of men.

• What did you try to show with this book?

On the one hand, it seemed interesting to me to mention that it is possible as a historian, far from political discourse or activist alone, to fuel debate about current societal issues (here biodiversity) through scholarship and historical science. On the other hand, this work, by detailing the musical interactions between humans and non-humans throughout history, reintroduces man in the symphony of the living, thus circumventing Western notions that separate the two kingdoms. Finally, by giving voice to very different authors and specialists (artists, philosophers, musicologists, art historians, bioacoustics, scientists), this work defends a form of analysis and listening, a picture of the diversity of reality, “multiplying our world and our ways of living in it” (Vincien Desperet ).

• What are your upcoming projects?

I started looking for a reception magic flute Mozart in the 20th and 21st centuries, which will likely lead to an exhibition and book. More collectively within the Museum of Music, I work with the teams on the history of the origin of the collections and the circumstances of obtaining their works (particularly during the French Revolution, the colonial period and the Nazi era).