Brian Eno: The Surrenderer

“For me the interest is in making something that can be interesting for a long time. So what you want is to make something that is in that very interesting area at the edge of chaos where it doesn't really settle down. It's not really stable.” Brian Eno 2021

For his exhibition at Paul Stolper Gallery and to coincide with London Gallery Weekend, Brian Eno will present ‘The Surrenderer’, a major installation of works, including ‘Umbria I’, Umbria II’ and 'Umbria III, lightboxes that seamlessly phase through random changing combinations of seductive self-generated ‘colourscapes’ using interwoven series of LED lights. “That was part of the justification of generative art, the idea that instead of making a piece that sits there and is one thing, you make something that is constantly remaking itself effectively, so nobody can ever say they've seen one of my light pieces in its entirety.” By using very simple programming systems they produce very complicated and stunning results. “What I like is being in the same position as a viewer. So if I make something that I know is going to change and produce combinations of things that are unpredictable then I am just a viewer like anybody else is at that point.”

Eno will also exhibit ‘Malva’, a new Speaker Vase. The painted, domestic ceramic vase houses two flowers, whose stems are bent steel rods and the flowers small speakers that emit an Eno ambient sound-piece at a level just loud enough to draw in the audience. “Ambient music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting”.

As a special event for London Gallery Weekend, in the gallery window we will also exhibit his seminal film of 1981 ‘Mistaken Memories of Mediaeval Manhattan’ with the soundtrack available via QR code.

Brian Eno is a visual artist, musician, composer and record producer, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music and generative painting. Michael Bracewell, in his essay for Eno’s book ‘Light Music’, (Paul Stolper Gallery 2016) describes Eno’s art as “a space for the contemplation of individual experience”, where one is “encouraged to engage with a generative sensory/aesthetic experience that reflects the ever-changing moods and randomness of life itself” and likens “the call of Eno’s art to that of, for instance, Matisse or Rothko at their most enfolding”.