Gryphon Rue is a composer, sound experimentalist, and curator. His work explores perception and real-time media; inducement of Flow State; musical saw improvisation and polyphonic overtone singing. Recent projects: Gropius Memory Palace, dir. Ben Thorp Brown (Soundtrack, World premiere: Saint Louis Art Museum, European Premiere: IFFR 2018); Strange Attractor, Ballroom Marfa, Marfa, TX, 2017); Google Portrait EP (TigerSushi Records, 2016); Earle Brown’s Calder Piece 1963–66 (Calder Foundation, Earle Brown Foundation, Talujon Percussion Quartet, Friends Seminary, New York City, 2016).
More info at Tigersushi Records
Write to me: Gryphonrue@gmail.com
Rue performs with polyphonic overtone singing, singing saw, 12-string guitar and electronics, often in collaboration with media artist Benton C Bainbridge. Bainbridge produces “electronic calligraphy” with Lisa Joy: a modified game console driven by signals from modular synthesizers.
Rue recently composed music for Gropius Memory Palace (2018) (World premiere: St Louis Art Museum; European premiere: International Film festival Rotterdam), a film by artist Ben Thorp Brown. Gropius Memory Palace guides the viewer through the Fagus Factory in Alfeld, Germany, one of the earliest designs of Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius. Built in 1911, the Factory continues to produce shoe lasts, a form in the shape of a foot for constructing footwear. Defying economic logic, hand-crafted production is still practiced today alongside automated manufacturing techniques. Brown uses the factory as the backdrop for the examination of shifts in technology and the workplace. Through a narrated meditation, Brown invites viewers to experience the Fagus Factory as a memory palace—an imaginary place in the brain for organizing and storing memories. Brown’s reflective journey through the factory reminds us that the body itself is akin to technology, as our perception is constantly reorganized by modes of production, memory, and history.
In 2017 Rue was guest curator for Ballroom Marfa (Marfa, TX), organizing Strange Attractor, a major exhibition exploring the inherent order embedded in chaos, through the uncertainties and poetics of networks, environmental events, technology, and sound. Strange Attractor presented commissions by Lucky Dragons, Thomas Ashcraft, and Phillipa Horan, never-before-seen works by Alexander Calder, Haroon Mirza, and Douglas Ross, and existing works by Channa Horowitz, Beatrice Gibson, and Robert Buck.
Rue has worked as a composer and curator for the Calder Foundation. Rue co-curated the Calder Foundation’s 12-hour projects—continuous programming in non-traditional locations of cross-generational and cross-disciplinary works such as film, sound, static art installations and performance. They Might Well Have Been Remnants of the Boat (2013) was presented in a neogothic refectory and featured works by artists such as Christine Sun Kim, Keith Rowe, Anti-Pop Consortium, Neptune, Chris Corsano, and Vertical Foliage Orchestra. The previous Oh, you mean cellophane and all that crap (2012) took place in a halted construction zone and featured works by artists such as Ikue Mori & C Spencer Yeh, Keith Rowe, Tristan Perich, White Suns, Sightings, Haroon Mirza, Dan Friel, and Rue’s ensemble Playing The Beetles.
Select projects with Calder Foundation: Calder Piece (1966) by Earle Brown, Friends Seminary, New York City (2016); They might well have been remnants of the boat, for which he also presented his ensemble piece Vertical Foliage Orchestra using aluminum scraps, brass gongs, and odd percussive materials from Calder’s studio; The High Line Hotel, New York City (2013); Rue authored the text Calder and Sound for the exhibition catalogue Alexander Calder: Avant-Garde in Motion, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2013); Oh, you mean cellophane and all that crap, for which he also presented his ensemble piece Playing The Beetles; McKittrick Hotel, New York City (2012); Composed soundtracks to mobiles-in-motion Eucalyptus (1940), Black Mobile with Hole (1954), Bosquet is the Best Best (1946), Calder Foundation website, filmed by King & Partners (2012).
Education
MA Creative Practice, Goldsmiths University (expected)
BA Electronic Music, Bard College
Discography
2018. Dean Wareham Vs. Cheval Sombre, singing saw (unreleased)
2017. GR1: Parity mix, Hartzine
2016. Google Portrait EP ft. Joakim, Tigersushi
2016. Crush LP, High Water, lyrics and guitars, Other People
2015. Guilt Vacation LP, El Tryptophan, self-released, vinyl distributed by Wharf Cat Records
2012. Good mourning, Short companions EP, collaboration with Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips, self-released
2012. Tally Marks EP, Odetta Hartman, singing saw, self-released
2009. Day Is Done, Peter Yarrow, vocals, Sterling Publishing
2007. Live at The Laughing Goat, The Chronic Healers, self-released CD-R
2007. Live at Ironweed Collective, Gryphon Rue, Big French, Jamie Cobratime, Cats Records Records
2006. Small Bug’s First Album LP, Small Bug (with Big French), self-released CD-R
2005. Peyos and the Plastic Mohawk EP, produced by Jason Rabinowitz with The Bloodsugars, self-released
2005. Consciousandwich EP, self-released CD-R
2002. The First Year LP, self-released CD-R
Soundtracks
2017. Ben Thorp Brown, Gropius Memory Palace, World Premiere: Saint Louis Art Museum, European Premiere: International Film Festival Rotterdam
2016. My Art, Laurie Simmons (composed by Will Epstein), guitar, World Premiere: Venice International Film Festival, North American Premiere: Tribeca Film Festival
2012. Three soundtracks for Alexander Calder’s Mobiles: Eucalyptus (1940), Black Mobile with Hole (1954), Bosquet is the Best Best (1946). Calder Foundation website, filmed by King & Partners
Music Videos
2016. Google Portrait (ft. Joakim), directed by Benton C Bainbridge, edited by Ian Holden & Gryphon Rue
2016. Beethoven for Relaxation, directed by Max Grey
2016. Insect Express, directed by Emily Pelstring
Ottawa International Animation Festival (honorable mention for Best Canadian Animation)
Read about Insect Express at Animation World Network
Curatorial projects
2017. Symbol Rush, Clayton Gallery and Outlaw Art Museum, 161 Essex st., New York City
2017. Strange Attractor, Ballroom Marfa, Marfa, Texas
2016. The Sump (H0L0), 1563 Decatur st., New York City
2016. Two performances of Earle Brown’s Calder Piece, 1963–66, Calder Foundation, Earle Brown Foundation, Talujon Percussion Quartet, Friends Seminary, New York City
2015. Eureka, music/installation, Pace Gallery, New York City
2015. #GauguinSounds, Ghost writer, Fondation Beyeler, Basel, CH
2013. They might well have been remnants of the boat, Calder Foundation, The High Line Hotel, New York City
2012. Oh, you mean cellophane and all that crap, Calder Foundation, The Mckittrick Hotel, New York City
Notable performances and collaborations
2018. Sharon Gal, Feel the Noise, for large ensemble of electric guitars
2017- Gryphon Rue & Benton C Bainbridge duo, singing saw & interactive video synthesizer objects
2017- Joakim live band, guitar
2017. Take Off Festival with Wouter van Reek (Keepvogel), Amsterdam, NL
2016. Festival Hongerige Wolf, Groningen, NL
2015. Guest performer, Clayton Patterson: “Outside In” with paintings by Elsa Rensaa, Howl Happening
2015. Lead, LYFE™ by Glass Ghost, co-presented by the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center and Performance Space 122, New York City
2014. i = u festival, Brooklyn, NY
2014. Busy Day, Christine Sun Kim & Thomas Benno, Droit de Cités
2014. Allison Brainard BOY SHOW 2.0, Aunts Armory Week LESBrunch, Abrons Art Center
2013. Vertical Foliage Orchestra, ft. Alejandro Antelo-Suarez, Anthony Kingsley (Tween), Aaron Moore (Volcano the Bear, Invisible Sports), in They might well have been remnants of the boat, The High Line Hotel, New York City
2012. Playing The Beetles, ft. Dave Nuss, Gabrielle Herbst, Daniel Fishkin, Odetta Hartman, in Oh, you mean cellophane and all that crap, The Mckittrick Hotel, New York City
2012. Phoenicia International Festival of the Voice, Phoenicia, NY
2011. USA Wanderlust Tour as folk duo Odetta and Gryphon
2011. Maybe I Should Have Called it ‘My Life in Nineteen Minutes’, Calder Foundation and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in association with AIR, Art International and the Clocktower Gallery, New York City
2011. Hardly Strictly Bluegrass competition at Steam Powered Hour, New York City
2011. Borderlines: Not a Manifesto but an Apparition, Senior Thesis Concert I & II, Bard College
2008. Sediment Club, founding member, drummer
2008. June Concert and Awareness Tour, Vietnamese cities and provinces with Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary, to raise awareness for victims of AGENT ORANGE, performing on HTV9
2008. Featured vocalist, Marina Rosenfeld’s Teenage Lontano, Whitney Biennial
2007. Cats Records Records tour with Jamie Cobratime & Big French
2007. Butch Morris ensemble at The Putney School, Putney, VT
2006. Opener for Robbie Dupree, Bearsville Theater, Woodstock, NY
1997. Saxophonist and dancer, Gail Gilbert, Folding Time, Thread Waxing Space, New York City
Texts
2013. “Calder and Sound,” in Alexander Calder: Avant-Garde in Motion, Düsseldorf: Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen (exhibition catalogue)
Installations
2013. Beethoven for Relaxation, in collaboration with sculptor Tom Smith, Delusions, Rox Gallery, New York City
2011. Six Degrees of Degradation, Chapel of the Holy Innocents, Bard College, Annandale, NY
Residencies
2017. Officer’s Row, Governor’s Island, New York City
2016. Ndsm Treehouse, Amsterdam
Film appearances
2013. To Be Forever Wild, dir. David Becker
Other writings
2014. “PostcART: Jay Miriam” Contemporary Lynx
Select Press
2017. PBS
2017. Flash Art
2017. Artnet
2017. Marfa Public Radio
2017. The Cusp
2017. Glasstire
2017. The Irish Times
2017. The Poleax
2017. Aquarium Drunkard
2017. The Art Newspaper
2017. Creative Disturbance
2017. Hartzine
2016. Village Voice
2016. Queens Ledger
2016. Pop Matters
2016. Tome to the Weather Machine
2016. Voice Magazine
2016. Impose
2016. Impose
2016. Black on the Canvas
2016. Artsy
2016. Audiofuzz
2016. Mpire
2015. The Art Newspaper