Presentation of Jannis Kounellis Da inventare sul posto (To Invent on the Spot), 1972 at Documenta V, Kassel 1972. Photo Paolo Mussat Sartor.
JANNIS KOUNELLIS: TO THE SOUND OF PICTURES
An exhibition and performance programme in dialogue with Christian Marclay
On 2 March 2026, Luxembourg + Co., London, will open Jannis Kounellis: To the Sound of Pictures, an exhibition and performance programme in dialogue with Christian Marclay. At the heart of the project are two significant experiments in painting and music conducted by Kounellis between the years 1970–72. Both works incorporate classical music scores within abstract compositions in oil on canvas, with the intention that these would be performed by musicians and dancers live in the gallery space.
Untitled (1971) from the collection of Artist Rooms, Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland, depicts a meticulously drawn segment from Johann Sebastian Bach’s St John Passion to be performed by a cellist. Da Inventare Sul Posto (1972) presents a short movement from Igor Stravinsky’s La Pulcinella to be performed by a violinist and a ballerina. United for the first time ever, the two paintings epitomise the effort made by Kounellis throughout his career to liberate language from its conventionally restricted uses, and to express the creative potential of language as symbol, image and sound, all at once. Kounellis’ performative notation paintings will be presented alongside two other early canvases in which the artist further explores linguistic rhythms and symbolic patterns. In Lunedì Martedì Mercoledì (1963), for example, the names of three days of the week (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday) are painted in different colour combinations depicting a seemingly purposeless chronological order that nevertheless entices the viewer to read the painting out loud and decipher both its colour scheme and semantic code.
Few contemporary artists have been as invested in exploring the crossover between the visual and the auditory as Christian Marclay (b.1955). Invited to contribute to the exhibition To the Sound of Pictures, Marclay has curated a performance series and will also present a sequence of wall-mounted works titled Drinking Songs (2014), as well as a live performance of his graphic score for solo voice No! (2021). Marclay’s Drinking Songs make use of found sheet music from British popular songs, which the artist displays behind circular “crown glass.” Typically found on the windows of old pubs, the rounded glass distorts the sheet
music and suggests a distorted reading of the song that recalls a state of intoxication.
No!, in turn, is a graphic score composed entirely by way of collaging various image and text fragments, primarily onomatopoeias, which Marclay collects from comics, manga, and other popular culture sources as means to instruct a live vocal performance. A series of live performances curated by Marclay will accompany the exhibition throughout its duration, including the enactment of Kounellis’ Untitled (1971) by Emily Henderson (Cello) and Doraly Gill (Cello), Da Inventare Sul Posto (1972) by Hugo Max (violin) and Kate Hester (ballerina), and Marclay’s No! by Wigmore Hall artist-in-residence Elaine Mitchener (vocals).
PROGRAMME
Due to limited space, kindly RSVP to london@luxembourgco.com to attend a performance.
Wednesday 18th March, 11:00-12:00
Jannis Kounellis, Untitled, 1971 – Emily Henderson (Cello)
Jannis Kounellis, Da Inventare Sul Posto, 1972, - Hugo Max (violin), Kate Hester (ballerina)
Friday, 27th March, 13:00-14:00
Jannis Kounellis, Untitled, 1971 – Emily Henderson (Cello)
Jannis Kounellis, Da Inventare Sul Posto, 1972 – Hugo Max (violin), Kate Hester (ballerina)
Thursday, 16th April, 11:00-12:00
Jannis Kounellis, Untitled, 1971 – Doraly Gill (Cello)
Jannis Kounellis, Da Inventare Sul Posto, 1972 – Hugo Max (violin), Kate Hester (ballerina)