Playlist: Georgia O’Keeffe’s Pelvis II
With Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts hosting its Georgia O’Keeffe and Henry Moore exhibit, 5 Cent Sound wants to bring the perfect playlist for your museum stroll — and the thought behind it — to you!
I have never seen a pelvic bone outside of a science textbook besides in a Georgia O’Keeffe painting. Maybe that’s why the beauty of Georgia O’Keeffe’s 1944 work Pelvis II shocked me — it showed me a fresh perspective on the beauty that has always been inside of me; that which is familiar but rarely seen. The painting is large and lets the viewer in to study the twists and twirls of its darkened curves. In its detailed, intimate view, O’Keeffe presents the pelvis bone as ethereal and alien against a pure blue sky, demonstrating the artistic, foreign world of one’s own body. It appears as soft music before my eyes.
That’s no mistake. Georgia O’Keeffe was heavily inspired by the relation of music to her painting process, adding a fresh perspective on the relationship between art and sound in her work. O’Keeffe’s perspective was inspired by an experience with an art instructor who “gave [her] an idea that […] music could be translated into something for the eye.” With the curated playlist “Georgia O’Keeffe’s Pelvis II,” I want to investigate the relationship between painting and sound further by turning the painting back into the sounds which I relate it to today.
Curation as an artistic act lends itself naturally to several mediums. It allows the curator to draw from already existing work to provide innovative conglomerations, pushing the audience to reassess the way they view the original. Playlisting can feel much the same: by shifting Thom Yorke’s “Klemperer Walks” from its place in Luca Guadanigno’s 2017 remake of the film Suspiria to a playlist of songs which are inspired by my view of Georgia O’Keeffe’s painting, I challenge myself on how I view the song in every medium. Suspiria scared me like no film had before with relentless body horror that turned beautiful when set to Thom Yorke’s arrangement in “Klemperer Walks.” The song became the opening of my playlist as O’Keeffe’s painting of bones inspires the simple beauty within an unnerving entity (a human pelvic bone, twisted beneath the desert sun).
Many of the songs on the playlist were chosen to elicit similar emotions. My hope in balancing the beauty of songs with an underlying strangeness is that the listener can reflect on how such a gorgeous painting can challenge one’s feelings in an initial glance. In “New Years’ Snow,” another entry in the playlist, Satanicpornocultshop blends glimmering arrangements with raw, haunting vocals. On the playlist’s third track, “Mother’s Love,” Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru’s lovely Tezeta piece feels honest and heartbreaking; it is a laugh and a cry in one song. Emily Remler’s “A Taste of Honey” is intimate and yearnful, but becomes lonely as the only solo guitar track on the playlist. Similar to the mentioned songs, Georgia O’Keeffe’s bone paintings blend the chaotic inner world with the graceful state of nature in a duality which the playlist strives to represent.
Recontextualizing work through curated playlisting can provide meaningful reflections on the art we enjoy. In this way, just as a song can be something for the eyes, a painting can be something for the ears. Songs can bring you into worlds where colors spin together, where the intimacy of a pelvis clashes with the uncovered bone, where O’Keeffe can whisper in your ears and your mind can flourish as if you are walking through the Met, alone, seeing paintings in the flesh.
Klemperer Walks by Thom Yorke
Ode to the Blue by Grouper
Mother’s Love by Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru
Lazy Calm by Cocteau Twins
New Years’ Snow by Satanicpornocultshop
Wehrmut by Cluster and Brian Eno
Teardrop by Lovesliescrushing
This Girl’s In love With You by Dorothy Ashby
Moss Garden by David Bowie
Lancaster Court by Jockstrap
Parfum d’étoiles by Ichiko Aoba
Pretty Things by Big Thief
A Taste of Honey by Emily Remler
His Song by Weyes Blood
Destroyer X by Slauson Malone 1
Up Song (Reprise) - Live at Bush Hall by Black Country, New Road