A LOST WORK REIMAGINED:
A CONSTELLATION OF POSSIBLE MASCULINES
In 1975, the composer Julius Eastman presented two works on a single program at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York: one was titled FEMENINE and the other MASCULINE. Interestingly, instead of presenting the two works on successive halves of this program, Eastman presented both works simultaneously in different locations on the Albright-Knox campus. Thus, the audience was forced to make a choice: Do they listen only to FEMENINE? Do they listen only to MASCULINE? Or do they oscillate freely between the two performances? Or could they somehow position themselves to listen to both works equally?
These questions that Eastman thrust upon the audience were not only musical, they were both prescient and philosophical. What does it mean to be feminine? What does it mean to be masculine? Can one be one today and another tomorrow? Can one be both simultaneously? Can one be neither? Are these qualities separable? Or do they in fact contain each other? And finally: how can these constructs be expressed as music?
To the best of anyone's knowledge, FEMENINE was the work composed first. Around the date of its completion, the work was performed several times. At its premiere, Eastman reportedly played piano wearing a dress. However, following this initial flurry of performances, FEMENINE was forgotten and, until recently, not revisited. Fortunately, both a manuscript and a recording of FEMENINE survived, and within the past five years, the piece has heroically re-emerged, becoming widely recognized as a masterwork with frequent performances around the globe.
MASCULINE, on the other hand, did not receive such a charmed fate; to this day, neither a score nor a recording survives. Not so much as a fragment of manuscript, nor an anecdote from a colleague has surfaced, thus leaving a tragic and poetically charged void where MASCULINE once was.
Which brings us to our present project: instead of seeing MASCULINE's absence as an obstacle, we have decided to see it as a blank canvas for a new generation of artists — each deeply schooled in the lineage of Julius Eastman — to meditate, express and respond. The world has changed so much in the nearly fifty years since the composition of MASCULINE and FEMENINE. Eastman's attitudes about race, gender, and sexuality have been vindicated in so many ways. Julius Eastman is the prism, and we have asked a new generation of artists to refract their own energies and ideas through him.
For this project, we have invited three artists — Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork, Sarah Hennies and Davóne Tines — to create works in the chasm left by MASCULINE's absence. The works are not re-creations, but rather, re-imaginings. Recalling that extraordinary day in 1974 at the Albright-Knox, we will perform these works simultaneously with FEMENINE, using the Getty's expansive campus as our grounds for experimentation. We are thrilled about this project and can't wait to share it with you.