Lonnie Holley
1a Ponsonby Rd, Ponsonby, Auckland
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Audio Foundation is pleased to announce two very special shows for critically-acclaimed Alabama-born artist, educator and musician Lonnie Holley.
Lonnie Holley was born on February 10, 1950, in Birmingham, Alabama one of 27 children during the Jim Crowe-era; he was traded for a bottle of whisky when he was four. From the age of five, Holley worked various jobs: picking up trash at a drive-in movie theatre, washing dishes, and cooking. He lived in a whiskey house, on the state fairgrounds, and in several foster homes. His early life was chaotic and Holley was never afforded the pleasure of a real childhood.
"...everything I've experienced, I've made a piece of art to go along with it." - Lonnie Holley
Since 1979, Holley has devoted his life to the practice of improvisational creativity. His art and music, born out of struggle, hardship, but perhaps more importantly, out of furious curiosity and biological necessity, has manifested itself in drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, performance, and sound. Holley’s sculptures are constructed from found materials in the oldest tradition of African American sculpture.
Objects, already imbued with cultural and artistic metaphor, are combined into narrative sculptures that commemorate places, people, and events. His work is now in collections of major museums throughout the country, on permanent display in the United Nations, and been displayed in the White House Rose Garden. In January of 2014, Holley completed a one-month artist-in-residence with the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in Captiva Island, Florida, site of the acclaimed artist’s studio.
Most recently his 2018 album MITH was released on Jagjagwar, with his single 'I Woke Up in a Fucked-Up America' making Pitchfork's top 20 songs of 2018. His work has also been featured in some of the biggest art galleries in the United States; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Smithsonian American Art Museum, and The Whitney Museum of American Art to name a few. For his NZ shows Lonnie will be joined by drummer Marlon Patton (USA) and local supports.
Press:
"Lonnie Holley is the closest thing America has to a prophet." - (Noisey) Vice “His work is rooted in experimental and noise traditions, but it also contains an excess of love and imagination.” - The New Yorker
“He collects our ugliest obscured objects and transforms them into singular reflections on
our troubled world.” - Pitchfork
"Somebody does something a little different and plenty of folks are ready to dub them a 'self-made man' or 'self-made woman.' But what Lonnie Holley does, and what he has made of himself, demands a whole new term. He truly is his own invention." - NPR
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