Pierre Henry's Visual Universe: Assemblages and Second Life of Matter

Following Pierre Henry's death on July 5, 2017, artpress republishes a 2008 text by Catherine Francblin exploring the visual dimension of the composer's work. Henry, a pioneer of musique concrète, created assemblages from obsolete electronic components, which were exhibited in 2013 at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and in 2012 and 2015 at Galerie Aline Vidal. His plastic activity began about fifteen years prior, but his interest in painting dates back further; he was friends with Nouveau Réalisme figures like Yves Klein, Arman, and François Dufrêne, collaborating with them in the 1960s. Henry produced the electronic version of Klein's 'Symphonie monoton', dedicated 'Variations pour une porte et un soupir' (1963) to Arman, and incorporated Dufrêne's 'cris-rythmes' in 'Granulométrie' and 'La Noire à soixante'. He also worked with Nicolas Schöffer, sonorizing a cybernetic tower and creating 'Kyldex' for a cybernetic spectacle choreographed by Alwin Nicolais. Henry's assemblages, akin to Kurt Schwitters' Merz, involve dismantling amplifiers, tape recorders, synthesizers, and pianos, then recombining the parts into new configurations. His home is filled with thousands of classified sound boxes and artworks covering every wall. The text emphasizes that Henry's visual work shares the same experimental, tactile, and recyclable ethos as his music, offering a 'second life' to inert matter.