Le Guess Who?

Curator: Matana Roberts

Curated by Matana Roberts

Chicago-born clarinetist and saxophonist Matana Roberts describes their work as “panoramic sound quilting”: think loops, field recordings, chanting and snippets of spirituals. As their ambitious conceptual project Coin Coin demonstrates (begun in 2011 and unfolding across what will be twelve chapters) Roberts’ research practice around themes of U.S history, ancestry, colonialism, and slavery is so deeply intertwined with their musical production that it’s hard to tell where one begins and the other ends. But there’s no need to, as this entanglement results in a rich and multi-layered body of work that stimulates and challenges us on levels aesthetic and intellectual.

Photography by M. Tarantelli