Beethoven Trumpet (with Ear) op # 133
John Baldessari, 2007
Resin, fibreglass, bronze, aluminium and electronics
186 x 183 x 267 cm
Saatchi Gallery, London
“I had been asked to do a retrospective in 2007 in Bonn with all my works that touched on music. Bonn is Beethoven’s birthplace and I visited his house. He had a whole cabinet of the ear trumpets he used. I was truly fascinated by them as sculptural forms, especially the one he had designed himself, which I found very beautiful. It had perhaps been four or five years since I had started working on pieces connected to parts of the body, notably the nose and the ears, so the idea of ears was therefore on my mind. And then at one of those moments when you are still awake at three in the morning, suddenly I thought, ‘wait a minute – the ear / the trumpet.’”
By leaning into the instrument and snapping one’s fingers, the trumpet starts playing Beethoven.
