A Prepared Piano: Cultural and Social Context around La Casa Encendida, 2003-2023
With Isabella Lenzi
March 16th - December 15th 2023,
La Casa Encendida,Madrid
Graphic Design by ACCA/André Covas, Carmo Azeredo
Collaborators: Matteo Caro, Jaime de la Torre
Artists: Cecilia Barriga, Claudia Claremi, Colectivo Boya, Colectivo Masquepalabras, Estefanía Santiago, La Parcería, Míriam Martín, Paco Graco, Patricia Esquivias
Memoria y Modo. Sobre Un piano preparado, de Paula García-Masedo
On the evening of December 13, 2006, a primarily young audience packed the courtyard of La Casa Encendida to listen to a “prepared piano”. This technique interferes with the mechanisms of this instrument using objects to alter its sounds and reveal its inner workings. The concert was part of the musical cycle organized on occasion of the opening of Essay, an installation by John Cage, who popularized this mode of performance. The event was representative of an institutional project designed keeping in mind the preexisting international artistic offer in the city of Madrid while approaching the emerging artistic scene of the city.
On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of La Casa Encendida, *A Prepared Piano* revisits this technique to review the institutional parameters of contemporary cultural production. From a specific and situated artistic approach focused on this venue and its context, the proposal seeks to understand how today's cultural institutions produce knowledge and approach know-hows, what are their pedagogical policies, what are their mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion, and, lastly, what is their long-term impact on the communities they serve to meet the needs of the post-covid era.
Like if it was an instrument, *A Prepared Piano* occupies La Casa Encendida’s spaces and programming with a series of elements and events. Through a documentary archive, the project reviews the history of this institution by tracing genealogies including models of independent cultural production in Lavapiés-Embajadores. The recognition of these experiences is also the starting point for new artistic proposals. A series of interventions and events test alternative exchanges between the institution and its context. Finally, by way of infiltrations, within the framework of «A Prepared Piano» La Casa Encendida invites to its space a series of independent cultural initiatives from Lavapiés-Embajadores, developed in parallel to the history of this institution.
Ultimately, «A Prepared Piano» is not merely conceived as a platform for critical reflection complementing La Casa Encendida's twentieth anniversary festivities, but also as an opportunity to imagine alternative futures for this and other artistic and cultural institutions.
