In 1972, Alice Coltrane moved her household from New Jersey to California with the purpose of constructing an ashram. Settling in Agoura Hills, the jazz virtuoso and Hindu non secular chief led a faith-based neighborhood for greater than three many years. Coltrane died in 2007. In 2017, the secluded place of worship closed, solely to be destroyed a 12 months later within the Woolsey hearth.
The Hammer Museum brings Coltrane’s ashram again to Los Angeles with its “largest” exhibition of the season, “Alice Coltrane, Monument Eternal.”
Curated by Erin Christovale, it’s the primary exhibition to look at Coltrane’s life and legacy by way of artwork. Alongside a mixture of ephemera and archival footage, the present options the works of 19 up to date Black artists. From deconstructed pianos to sensory deprivation rooms that play her sermons to colourful laser projections, Coltrane’s legacy is within the palms of those American artists. Some had been requested to create items that immediately reply to her archives whereas others shared preexisting works that join with Coltrane’s ethos.
“She’s a Black woman who found ways to liberate and emancipate herself in this society, in this world, on her own terms, and that’s what I take away from her legacy,” mentioned Christovale. “She is a prime example of someone who exercised her Black radical imagination. She was generous enough to do that collectively with the people around her and to leave us with clues as to how to do that for ourselves. We absolutely need that type of thinking and imagination in the current state of the world.”
“Alice Coltrane, Monument Eternal” divides the jazz musician’s legacy into three themes: sonic innovation, non secular transcendence and architectural intimacy.
(The John and Alice Coltrane House)
The present is split into three themes: sonic innovation, non secular transcendence and architectural intimacy. First, guests are launched to Coltrane, the musical virtuoso. Raised in Detroit, she started enjoying the organ for her church’s congregation at age 9. She additionally picked up the piano and the harp. By the early ’60s, she was part of a number of touring jazz teams. Whereas enjoying with the Terry Gibbs Quartet in New York, she met famed saxophonist John Coltrane and received married in 1965. Later in life, she turned a pioneer of non secular jazz — the place she blended unrehearsed rhythms with the sounds of her religion.
Marked by musically charged sculptures, resembling Gozié Ojini’s disassembled piano keys and Jamal Cyrus’ saxophone — with ropes spewing out of its tone holes — the room explores Coltrane, the lifelong musician. Photos of her and her husband touring and performing in Japan and pages from her household’s photograph album fill the glass circumstances as Jasper Marsalis’ summary work of musical performances grasp on the neighboring wall.
Ojini, who was born in L.A., considers his participation within the present to be a homecoming, as he as soon as labored the Hammer’s entrance desk whereas attending UCLA. His two items, “44.6 lbs” and “4.5 lbs,” debuted at his first solo present, “Passages,” in New York final spring. He mentioned he pertains to Coltrane as a result of he grew up in a musical household and appears to music for inspiration.
“I’m in this mode of returning back to something that I couldn’t claim as mine,” Ojini mentioned of his sprawled-out, destroyed piano construction. “There’s been a piano in my house for as long as I can remember. And I always felt estranged from music as a kid. So it’s been nice to finally kind of come back and be accepted into this global community.”
Coltrane launched a complete of 20 albums. On this a part of the exhibit, guests can sit and hearken to her sonic creations.
(Sarah M Golonka / smg {photograph})
Final weekend, the Hammer celebrated the opening with a full-fledged get together. Because the evening’s DJs managed the dance ground and museum-goers wandered by way of the galleries, Hari Williams and Malik Vitthal had been transported to a significant a part of their childhood. The 2 mates grew up on Coltrane’s ashram — Williams lived there till he was 11 and Vitthal moved there when he was 8. Strolling by way of the exhibit, Vitthal mentioned he skilled the sensation “you get when you get out of church. It’s a lot to absorb.”
“I remember after the [2018] fires and remember after the land changed ownership, we were talking about whether the ashram existed as it did in the physical realm — especially with not being able to go there and conduct services like we were accustomed to,” mentioned Williams. “But its spirit is something that we carry and embody wherever we go. So to be in a space where there’s a collection of so many things that feel familiar is really beautiful.”
Surrounded by decals of Coltrane’s albums, Williams and Vitthal stood in entrance of an set up that enables people to take a seat and pay attention to every of her tasks. The pair walked over to the album cowl of “The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda,” a compilation album launched in 2017. They acknowledged acquainted faces from the group photograph and pointed to slightly woman in a pink gown, who now goes by the stage title Doja Cat.
Reflecting on the inventive lineage of artists like Doja Cat, who grew up on the ashram, and Coltrane’s grandnephew Steve Ellison, a.ok.a. producer and DJ Flying Lotus, Williams and Vitthal mentioned lots of their friends have gone on to excel of their respective fields due to the atmosphere they had been raised in.
All through the run of the present, the Hammer is internet hosting a collection known as “Turiya Rising.” Each Sunday, completely different musicians will carry out on this stage, designed by GeoVanna Gonzalez.
(Sarah M Golonka / smg {photograph})
After the passing of John Coltrane, Alice turned to African and Japanese religions, particularly Hinduism, and took on the Sanskrit title Swamini Turiyasangitananda. The non secular transcendence portion of the exhibit is marked by a number of tv units that play Coltrane’s present “Eternity’s Pillar,” during which she shared her teachings. Different works like Shala Miller’s “Heavenly Father” photograph collection, portraying a visitation dream from her deceased father, and Coltrane’s framed depictions of “Krishna” and “Rama,” fill the gallery.
Star Feliz, a New York artist now primarily based in L.A., was exploring the connection between civilian oracles and synthetic applied sciences of their artwork after they had been approached to make a brand new piece for the present. A longtime fan of Coltrane, they turned particularly to Coltrane’s ebook “Turiya Speaks, Divine Discourses Volume I” for inspiration. The multimedia artist created an earth-toned concrete sculpture with a small display and ethernet cables reaching towards the ceiling, known as “Siren of Oblivion.”
“I really felt like this was an opportunity to strip down a lot and honor the connection to the heart and to spirit that is so present in [Coltrane’s] work,” Feliz mentioned of how Coltrane influenced their inventive course of. “In my practice, spirit has always been there, but there’s always been this tinge of trauma and violence because of my ancestral history.”
The ultimate part of the exhibit focuses on Coltrane’s capability to construct worlds, like in her ashram and in her household residence. That includes a meditation hub and an set up that performs frequencies to align chakras, guests exit the exhibition in a meditative state.
“One thing I can say without a doubt is that her music is healing. It’s cathartic. From a very young age, she understood the power of pairing the sonic realm with the spiritual realm. Her legacy has been about how to bring those two worlds together and what that can do for people,” mentioned Christovale. “Now more than ever, we need that sort of sonic balm that her music provides.”
