“Still Life with Silence” Artist Meet & Greet with Agustín Castilla-Ávila

The Anderson Center at Tower View presents Still Life with Silence, a collection of 18 graphic works by artist-in-residence Agustín Castilla-Ávila intended to contemplate and focus on the graphic value of silence in music. The artist is participating in a Meet and Greet events in the Tower View Barn July 27 – July 29 from noon to 2:00 p.m. Agustín is also offering a brief artist talk in Barn about the exhibition Friday, July 29 at 6:30 p.m., prior to Nomads-Oasis concert at 7 p.m.

Still Life with Silence exhibition and the Nomads-Oasis concert serve as residency capstone events for interdisciplinary artist Agustín Castilla-Ávila, a July artist-in-residence at the Anderson Center through a Salzburg-Minnesota Artist Exchange program with City of Salzburg, Austria. Minnesota visual artist Emily Donovan is in turn living and working at the City of Salzburg’s Künstlerhaus the month of July.

Agustín shares, “I believe that silence has great value in our society today, which music has had throughout history. Consistent with these beliefs, I created the series Still Life with Silence using the graphics of silence in the same way those of sound have traditionally been used.”

“In the works, which are music scores at the same time, several issues concerning silence and its musical representation are involved,” Agustín elaborates. “With these musical graphics of silence, I try to conceive a symbolic world to create portraits, landscapes or confrontations between the language and the music language. The whole visual process is done with rests and musical language symbols.”

“I believe strongly in the richness of silence, which is a very strong element in the landscape of Salzburg, the city where I have been living in the last 18 years. At the same time, I want to bring some attention to our inner voice and its importance as individuals. These graphic music scores were not created for physical voices but for our inner one.”

About the Artist

Agustín Castilla-Ávila is a graphic artist, composer, guitarist, improviser, author and artistic researcher. As a graphic artist he has exhibited his works Still Life with Silence in galleries and museums in Japan, Ukraine, Latvia, Austria, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal and Mexico. In 2013 he received the Annual Music Award from the Government of the Region of Salzburg for his work The Rest is Silence, the first existing silent opera.

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Operating Support grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts & cultural heritage fund.