Manny building
“Air”
Rolf Julius
In his work, Rolf Julius tirelessly seeked to reveal the relationship between music and sculpture, or how to create “music for the eyes” (which is also the title of one of his compositions). One discovers Air by walking close to the Manny building. Under its metallic skin, a “gentle music for walls”, resonates and seems to subtly create an “audible façade”.
As an artist close to the Fluxus movement since the 1970’s, Rolf Julius was both sculptor and musician. In fact, this is how he described his work : “I create a musical space with my art. With my music, I create an art space. Art and music are the same thing. There is a meeting of minds with the spectator and listener, and from deep inside, something new comes about.”*
About Manny building, he said : “There is a movement of air around the building that you can feel as you get closer to it, if you relax…” Here, by treating the sound as a material, Rolf Julius was reducing the importance of the visual sense to rebalance the perceptive senses. As a result, a magnificent timeless and tactile sculpture comes out of Manny.”**
*Interview with Rolf Julius by Regina Coppola, an extract from Large Black (red), University Gallery, Fine Art Center, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2001.
**Rolf Julius – Small Music (grau), Kehler Verlag, Heidelberg, 1995, back cover.