Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir

HOWL
2016

Gerðarsafn Kópavogur Art Museum
That Time | Þá
27 October - 18 December 2016 | 27. október - 18. desember 2016

Concert | Tónleikar:
I MUST BE THE DEVIL
Salurinn
30 October 2016 | 30. október 2016
8 PM | 20:00

Performer | Flytjandi:
Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir  piano | píanó

Aðgangur ókeypis | Free admittance

Howl is a work created from psychomagic performed by Kristín Anna in the desert of California in the autumn of 2013 after long meditation on the human body as nature. Only witnessed by photographer Elísabet Davíðsdóttir and her camera, Elísabet later helped Kristín to put together her composition from the photographic documents created. Howl now also clads a double vinyl vocal improvisation of sweet satanic feminine ambience that Kristín Anna created during a residency in the desert of California the previous spring and which bears the same title.

Howl (the album) was released in 2015 on Vinyl Factory’s new label Bel-Air Glamour Records, curated by visual artists Ragnar Kjartansson and Ingibjörg Sigurjónsdóttir. A frequent collaborator of Ragnar, Kristín Anna performs in his video installation The Visitors, to name one collaboration. Last summer, she wrote music for and performed in his stage piece Forever Love together with her twin sister Gyða and the Dessner twin brothers of the rock group The National, to name another. Together, they performed songs from the stage piece at the Barbican Theater in London this summer, where Kristín Anna also performed some of her piano songs.

Kristín Anna is currently finalising recordings of piano songs she has been writing for the last twelve years and will perform a selection of the works at the concert hall Salurinn during Cycle festival. The cycle of songs is called I Must Be The Devil.

Howl er myndaverk unnið upp úr gjörningi sem Kristín Anna gerði í eyðimörk Kaliforníu haustið 2013 eftir djúpa íhugun um líkamann sem náttúru. Eina vitnið af honum var Elísabet Davíðsdóttir og myndvél hennar. Myndin klæðir tvöfalda vínylplötu af sungnum spunaupptökum sem Kristín Anna framkallaði í listamannadvöl á þessum sama stað vorið áður og ber sama titil.

Platan Howl kom út á síðasta ári á Bel-Air Glamour Records útgáfunni sem er undir listrænni stjórn Ragnars Kjartanssonar og Ingibjargar Sigurjónsdóttur. Kristín Anna hefur tekið þátt í sköpun margra verka Ragnars, m.a. The Visitors og birtist í ýmsum myndum og hljóðum í verkum hans. Einnig tók hún þátt í að semja tónlistina og flytja sviðsverkið hans Forever Love ásamt Gyðu tvíburasystur sinni og Dessner tvíburabræðrunum í rokksveitinni The National. Þau fluttu nokkur lög úr verkinu í Barbican Theater í sumar, en þar kom Kristín Anna einnig fram ein með píanólög sín.

Kristín Anna er í þessum skrifuðu orðum að leggja lokahönd á upptökur af píanólögum sem hún hefur samið og flutt á síðustu tólf árum og kemur út á Bel-Air Glamour 2017. Hún mun flytja valin verk úr þessu safni í Salnum á hátíðinni en lagabálkinn kallar hún I Must Be The Devil.

Kristín Anna is a musician born in Iceland who works in any field surrounding sound, visual and performance art. For a while, Kristín Anna would perform one-woman shows as Kría Brekkan, releasing occasionally off-the-radar 7” and burned CDs. She was a part of “Artist Theater,” a Reykjavík based collective of artists from various creative fields making evenings of art taking to the stage. She has worked with visual artist Shoplifter as a crawling sound-making creature in synthetic hair landscape sculptures and with filmmaker Guy Maddin composing and performing music as well as narrating his Reframed: Tales Of Gimli Hospital at Lincoln Center in New York for Performa 2012. She has appeared at the Tectonics festival in Reykjavík several times, as a performer and improviser. She wrote interludes to Iannis Xennakis’ pieces with her old band múm for the Holland Festival many years ago and was an accordion player in the Balkan-goth big band Stórsveit Nix Noltes.  She recently participated in an artistic take over of Funkhaus, a 1950s music and recording palace in the outskirts of Berlin.

Á árunum 2006-2012 kom Kristín Anna að mestu fram sem Kría Brekkan, hún gaf þó út nokkrar duldar 7” og brennda diska. Hún var tónskáld, flytjandi og sögumaður í Reframed: Tales Of Gimli Hospital eftir Guy Maddin sem flutt var í Lincoln Center New York á Performa 212. Hún hefur komið fram á allmörgum tónlistarhátíðum heims, þ.á.m. Holland Festival þar sem hún samdi interlúdur milli verka Iannis Xenakis með gömlu hljómsveitinni sinni múm og sem spunaleikari og flytjandi á Tectonics í Reykjavík í nokkur skipti. Hún var meðlimur í Leikhúsi listamanna 2009-2014 og harmónikkuleikari balkan-gothbandsins Stórsveit Nix Noltes um áraraðir. Nýlega tók hún þátt í listrænnni yfirtöku á Funkhaus tónleika- og upptökubyggingunni í Berlín.