Radical Engagement: exploring the presence of music in Mike Kelley’s Riddle of the Sphinx

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Composer Note: As an extension of my frontline educational practice at the Guggenheim Museum, Radical Engagement is the essay component of an expansive study project focusing on Mike Kelley’s Riddle of the Sphinx. The project was brought to life in collaboration with the Curatorial, Learning and Development, and Gallery Guide departments at the Guggenheim, the Mike Kelley Foundation, and Rieko Aizawa and Jesse Mills of the Horzowski Trio. The musical composition resulting from the project had its premiere performance by Aizawa and Mills in the Guggenheim’s Peter B. Lewis Theater on 27 February 2025. The Riddle of the Sphinx was on display in the exhibition By Way Of: Material and Motion in the Guggenheim Collection, curated by Naomi Beckwith, the museum’s chief curator and deputy director.

Overture    

"…works develop a life of their own by virtue of their existence in the world outside of my control."

–Mike Kelley, from The Uncanny

Fellow Traveler,

To experience the world through the primacy of music is the fortune and gift of both the musician and the receiver of music. To think in music, the tonalities and harmonies issuing from instruments, takes the musician’s consciousness into the centrality of notes and chords the way a writer enters language, a dancer becomes movement, or a visual artist enters a oneness with their medium of composition. American artist Mike Kelley’s Riddle of the Sphinx (1991) offers an exploration of a music-visual fusion in a weave of art object effect. Within the installation’s components – a knitted acrylic yarn blanket overlaying nine stainless steel bowls, and one lithographic print mounted on the wall above – resides the presence of music.

Presence. The here-ness, the being-ness, the breath of something. The rising of music off an object, hovering in air, settling down again, then moving through color as if blood through veins. The Riddle of the Sphinx presents, in physicality and tone, a music ranging the soundlands between a graphic score and improvisation.

From the understanding of the presence of music to the playing of it required movement and collaboration. In the beginning was the visual, the reading and recognition of music, then a crescendo into sound, riding a note to the end of its wave. Presence to performance enacted process, musical minds set to motion and guided by principles of exploration, consideration, allowance, and opening of both art object and artist. Exploration of the music in Riddle of the Sphinx proceeded as a radical educational engagement centered on object-based research and its myriad practical applications.

The what of the engagement and the how of engaging remained inseparable. The pace of the looking proved vital and the radical level of engagement unwound into the unbound. To engage radically is to explore. It was not necessary to over-personalize the venture. The I(eye) after all, does not automatically settle or move toward restriction, and it generally proves wise to avoid traps leading to the rigidly interpretive and solipsistic, or into the strict borderlands of the provincial, the orthodox, or the doomed.

Movement into the presence of music embarked with the fact of the blanket, bowls, and print creating the installation. As music rose from presence into sound, it traveled into a resonance and opening of art piece, artist, and the interactor (you, Fellow Traveler). Trust that the most important footfall of a journey is in the departure. A pirogue with a sturdy sail needs only a single enchanted note from a seabird to circumnavigate a globe.

Movement One

Examining the Object

Music unveiled itself in the patterning of the knitted blanket.

The parallelogram is the blanket’s core structural shape. Sixteen vertical strips sewn together, each with 43 of the parallelogram units, create a zig-zag design throughout the 26 x 13–foot piece. The parallelogram has two sizes, a principal size encompassing 36 of the rows, and a secondary size, double the height of the principal size, in the other seven rows.

Patterning in the acrylic yarn of each parallelogram and subsequent row results in an optical effect of a predominant color defining the row. The thread pattern contains a base color in each row of parallelograms. In the darker rows the base color is a navy blue, in the lighter rows the base color is a shade of beige. The color groupings of the rows present three distinct sections. The stainless steel bowls swell the blanket from beneath and give a unique characteristic to each section with four in the light colors, two in the middle, and three with darker colors.  

The accounting of the object, the “data,” is a mathematical and tonal detail of pattern in parallelograms, rows and strips, and mounds. The lithographic print offers reflection, symmetry, and recurrence. What then are the math and tones? They present as the math and tones of music, and the installation can be described in the language of music.

Similar to sheet music, the multi-colored rows can be read horizontally and vertically. The light purple-colored row is the first of every six rows, shaping groups of six, marks the first of a chord progression or the first note of a six-note hexatonic scale.

The orange row at every fourth position within the groups of six, illuminates a 6/8 time signature. The thick strips move up one position traveling vertically in each sequence of repeating chords. The gold row at position five offers a second, or complimentary rhythmic pattern. A repeating row at position three, sets up the movement breaks in the middle coming from both directions. Because the pattern in the middle movement breaks so significantly, a polytonal condition comes into play.

The 16 vertical sections stitched together create a base musical structure, as in for example, the AB jazz structure of 16 bars. Two rows together, as in the distinct or offset rows through the middle section, form the 32-bar AABA jazz structure, (the most popular in jazz composition).

Tonal qualities enhance the musical presence. Extending out from a wall where the lithographic print overlooks the blanket and bowls, orients a collective tone of lightness moving toward the more intense. The mounds lifting the blanket in the spacing of four, two, and three (moving from light section to dark) create leitmotifs which begin recurring melodies or rhythms.

Even as the math-music and tone enunciates musical presence, the exploration keeps moving. What might the presence say, or invite? Does it communicate a score or encourage an improvisation? A bellow hoping for an ear? A sound waiting for a frequency? A music waiting for a musician?

Movement Two

The Music

If music resides in the Riddle Of The Sphinx – the answer to the question of its presence being, yes – what then is it and can it be played? Asking if it can be played, is the question merely about structure? Over the course of several months, the piece underwent an intensive musical theory examination and assessment with Rieko Aizawa (piano), and Jesse Mills (violin), of the Horzowski Trio. The assessment, both in-gallery and photographic study, transitioned into an active process of composing and playing the music.

In the first of three intensive in-gallery study sessions, Aizawa and Mills spoke at length, expanding out from the blanket having a fundamental musical structure. They read the structure describing jazz, early classical music, Japanese music, John Cage, the connection of BeBop back to Bach, the French Composer Olivier Messiaen, and American composer Morton Feldman who was a pioneer of indeterminate music and made music based on blankets and rugs as he was intrigued with their repeating patterns.

When moved to the level of close looking at the individual thread patterns in the rows and parallelograms, Mills talked about playing with Ornette Coleman.  Coleman communicated to members of his ensemble his notion of “harmelodic” playing within his written jazz compositions – where notation contained suggestion. So, for example, a C, G, or E could be played and any choice would be correct. It all depended on what an artist brought to it in that improvisational moment. Because of the interplay between musician and suggestion, the composition subsequently always remains alive and flexible.

The I(eye) had already stepped back, left in the distance by advanced musical consciousness and an exponential leap forward in the quantitative consideration of the art. The affirming question could stand on ground without an interpretive crutch. Is music here? Mills and Aizawa confirmed, with excitement and inspiration, that in the Riddle of the Sphinx, music was there.

When then asked, “that being the case, can you play it?”

Mills said, “If I had my violin I could play it right now.”

An initial estimation of the length of the composition was, “10 minutes but no shorter.”

Subsequent in-gallery sessions intensified into close examinations of the three distinct sections of the blanket, tonal considerations based on point-of-view, color intensity, the rises and falls produced by bowls underneath the blanket, the mirroring of the floor components to the lithographic print, and down to the thread pairings and coloring defining each row and parallelogram, and cross-modal sensory connections between music and color.* The engagement continued on to composing and rehearsal sessions as well as comprehensive listening to Mike Kelley’s discography.

The piece composed by Aizawa and Mills is 10 minutes long and structured in three movements without breaks, each movement flowing into the next. The middle section is a polytonal offset from the other two and introduces improvisational elements. A 6/8 time signature is used throughout. There are two, six-chord progressions, each with a common pitch (a pedal point). The wide color bands increase the length of the chords. Phrases of 16 measures and eight measures exist throughout. Several tonal considerations are central to the piece, most notably four, two, and three chords for the mounds lifting the blanket in each of the three movements, and the solo piano cadenza brings in elements of Japanese music communicating the lithographic print of Mt. Fuji above the cloudline.

The process, once complete, traversed a seascape from the (eye)I crossing the installation to a finished musical composition, through a course of radical engagement.

Movement Three

Radical Engagement

Radical engagement found its parentage in the extended view. Harvard professor Jennifer L. Roberts describe the extended view, an “immersive attention,” this way:

“In all of my art history courses, graduate and undergraduate, every student is expected to write an intensive research paper based on a single work of their own choosing. And the first thing I ask them to do in the research process is to spend a painfully long time looking at that object…and spend three full hours looking…noting down his or her evolving observations. The time span is explicitly designed to seem excessive. Also crucial to the exercise is the museum or archive setting, which removes the student from his or her everyday surroundings and distractions….” **

A nexus of engagement coalesced from processes on the object-based ridge of the study spectrum in the application of object analysis, close looking, inquiry-centric learning, and ekphrastic experience. Pattern recognition centered the exploration. The radical nature of the engagement took root from the outset. My in-gallery time with Riddle Of The Sphinx measured out with a conservative calculation of 250-270 hours. The time I spent alone in the gallery before Riddle Of The Sphinx went on view to the public amounted to 15-20 hours. The intensive object analysis sessions with composers Aizawa and Mills totaled five hours.

Layered within the hourglass count were conversations with museum guests from every imaginable background and place across the world including musicians, artists, scholars, engineers, architects, teachers, photographers, physicians, as well as designers and textile practitioners from weaving, knitting, quilt, and crochet communities. With the study of Mike Kelley’s available discography, photographic study, time spent on presentations, essay and project proposal writing, and extensive reading about Mike Kelley’s life and career, the 350-hour mark receded into the distance.

To look and to see, is to be with.

Radical engagement pushes extended viewing into prolonged exploration. It departs into experimental and transformative spaces where object-based practices forward new or alternative openings about a piece, perhaps the artist as well, and considerations by the viewer. A radical engagement initiates action and opportunity.

The more engaged, the more openings and allowances presented themselves in the Riddle Of The Sphinx. Radical engagement led to a strata of questions and formed a body of knowledge based on examination to stand next to theoretical and historical nodes of learning. It located a center in exploration which included creative output as a component of study, as a “finding,” including the possibility of a research point of departure and the radical engagement becoming its own creative space.***

Radical engagement (as with all object-based approaches) contributes to a research space when scant or no documentation exists about a piece, as in the case of Riddle Of The Sphinx. With no documentation, a void opens in knowing artist intent (though artist intent is not defining or all-encompassing by any means). When little or nothing is there, go to the object and seehear what it has to say, even if only for exploration.

Extending from lack of documentation and no well-defined intent, the next consideration became a focus on object effect. From there to the next trail – what clues might the object effect contribute to the understanding about the artist?

Movement Four

The Artist

The exploration of Riddle Of The Sphinx opened a view of both the physical installation and Mike Kelley the musician. His discography is extensive. Kelley’s credits include recording on drums, organ, vocals, noise elements, and an experienced hand in editing, mixing, and producing. He also had considerable performance experience. The music cuts a broad swath stylistically, ranging over an arc of what might be considered early ambient or electronica, soundscapes, pre-punk noise, and music with a companion purpose on a soundtrack, video, or for an exhibition performance. Much of the music is heavy on improv and the experimental (jazz and psychedelia influenced), with a great deal of layering and shaping. He composed music, not necessarily “songs,” even in compositions associated with song length running in the shorter ranges of one to four minutes.

The exploration with Riddle of the Sphinx opened the space to consider Kelley’s visual and musical imagination being present in equal measure. The installation holds the possibility of a window into Kelley’s ability and way of thinking in music – the tones and math of it – whether intentional or subconscious. One of the many exciting notions about Riddle of the Sphinx was even if there had been explicit declarations on artist intent and forward meanings, possibilities still would have abounded, in that the effect of the piece could express the musical imagination of its creator regardless of degree of intent. The exploration expanded the consideration of an artist with the ability to allow us to see in sound and hear in image.

After completing the music composed for Riddle of the Sphinx, Jesse Mills gave insights into thinking in music and thoughts extending from a musical point of departure. His background playing improvisational and experimental music related organically to the exploration of the Riddle of the Sphinx and Mike Kelley’s music.

Could you briefly describe what it is like for you to think in music, including when you became aware of it as a child? And how do you think it affected your thinking early on?

I don’t actually remember a time in my life before I played the violin, since I started at the age of three. Therefore, it’s difficult to separate the way that I perceive music from any other way that I think, or for me to imagine someone else’s experience. I do have distinct times that I can remember from my childhood when I encountered a new way of thinking in music. The idea of color in music is a term which describes tone (as opposed to pitch or dynamic qualities), but the same word obviously also applies to the visual colors we perceive. When I began to learn about how to create diverse types of sounds on the violin, it also triggered connections for me to visual colors. I began to imagine how a pale/airy sound might also resemble yellow. Or how a thick/rich sound might suggest a deep red. Pitch and musical tone are linked, as they both contain a range of overtones. Therefore, my mental picture of color and sound are related.

How did thinking in music change or intensify as an adult and manifest in your imagination?

As I learned about certain music, my imagination expanded and I developed as an artist. I remember first studying the music of Arnold Schoenberg, for example. His expression was so shapely and emotional, and every note seems to contain so much nuance and freedom. His musical compositions were some of the first to feel dynamic to me: I could imagine a whole scene taking place in my head, with characters of my own invention, each with feelings and inner stories to tell, and I could close my eyes and feel a certain lighting tone to the scene, and the temperature of the “room” in my mind. I also felt some similar extra-musical feelings when listening to John Coltrane’s music: I could experience a warmth, an energy of positivity yet also sadness. I hope that my own musical output translates this depth of feeling to others and inspires listeners to feel vivid emotions in their own imaginations.

Does your musical thinking influence how you might engage with art, literature, or theater?

My “musical thinking” might best be described as an excitement that I feel when I am inspired by music. The music inspires me to have thoughts or reactions that in turn generate ideas for new music of my own. It is subtle, and I feel more inspired by the music on certain days than on other days. When I am really “clicking,” I feel I can take in many kinds of art (visual, musical, literary, etc.), and my brain begins to spontaneously react to it. However, the same art on one day might not trigger my creativity on the next day. The quality of the artistic statement helps: certain masterpieces are bound to give some creative response. Yet, I do still feel that as a receiver of the art I need to meet it halfway. If I’m in a good emotional space with room to be inspired, the art can set my brain in motion and lead me to my own artistic thoughts. I’m sure we all have some sort of similar feelings when we are inspired by art, but of course the mysterious part about it all is that we don’t truly know how anyone else thinks except for ourselves. I believe we all have a personal relationship with art, and we all have our own vulnerability to it.

What did listening to Mike Kelley’s music do to connect you with him and give insights to the installation?

When I heard the music from his audio CDs, I was introduced to a wilder part of Mike Kelley the artist; each track seemed to conjure a new world of sound and emotion. There was humor, but also that same whimsical, organized and clear assemblage of ingredients that I had met in Riddle of the Sphinx. His music seemed confident, as though he was free to experiment and improvise, not crying in my face with desperation. I could always hear a contrast of tones, textures, and pitches. If there existed something warm and calm in the music, there was also its opposite introduced somewhere else, to create balance. It was this idea that stuck with me in our own composition: the qualities of contrast and balance that we wanted to bring with our music.

Finale

Observe, Fellow Traveler, how far we could venture into music and sound and the unseen, before considerations of the Riddle of the Sphinx owing its name to Greek mythology. A conceptually rendered segment from a narrative accompanies the installation, though the piece is so engaging in color, scale, design, construction, artistic choices, being captivated by it is not narrative dependent. Textile artists, to name one of the groups of people fascinated by the piece during its exhibition run, scarcely entered the mythological narrative element at all. They were more than thrilled to discuss temperature blankets, the bargello, and the number of cultures where knitting and the loom have deep historical resonances.

In considering the narrative in its conceptual visual rendering, light is cast in the direction of a communion with the tonal qualities of the musical presence.

In the mythological story of Oedipus, the Sphinx sat outside the city of Thebes asking the following riddle to passersby: What creature who speaks with one voice walks on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three at night. Answer: a human being. A human crawls on all fours as a baby, walks on two legs as an adult, and uses a cane in old age. The metal bowls placed beneath the blanket in Kelley’s installation are located in the color fields representing morning, afternoon and night in the riddle in the corresponding numbers four, two, and three.

The story also contains a second part to the riddle. Scholarship and translation can lead the element of the “second” riddle into uncertain territory. It has been seen as a second part, or a second riddle altogether, and one that possibly pre-dates the first. The “second” riddle says: There are two sisters who speak with one voice, the first gives birth to the second, who in turn gives birth to the first. Who are they? Answer: day and night.

Oedipus answered the riddle correctly and he subsequently became the king of Thebes. Mike Kelley composed a visual representation of both riddles. The “Day” and “Night” representations (closely linked visually to the sun and moon) are mirrored in both the photo and the blanket.

The image of Mt. Fuji above the cloudline in the lithographic print activates multiple dimensions and meanings in the piece. Mt. Fuji has symbolic implications directly related to the story of Oedipus. Throughout the ages, Mt. Fuji has been seen at one time or another as home of the gods, a dwelling place of the dead, an idea of perfection as inspiration for poets and artists, a place to ascend by those seeking transcendence.

We arrive, Fellow Traveler, at the conclusion of the exploration by sailing further still.

The Oedipus story as a narrative, itself can land in musical phrasing. The myth began in folklore. It was gathered by the poets and their epic voices. The original texts of the story were lost in time, referential material being all that remained in their wake. The story was then carried by the playwrights, who likewise strut and fret their hour upon the story stage. The Oedipus story, his encounter with the Sphinx, is a puzzled-together narrative, extrapolated, expanded upon, and summarized at various points until ascending Mount Olympus. Multiple plot lines appeared along the way, characters with several names, one riddle or two, all gaps in need of filling, summations and clues as mortar for the tale.

All are considerations outside of the objects, into the referential and beyond. A Radical Engagement exploration can serve as a guide when stepping outside the frame of an art piece. To stay in spirit and put in the language of exploration: In what form did Oedipus and the Sphinx first appear? Was it in oral tradition, then up into text, bouncing off the pens of poets, or were they first encountered together on a vase painting? Do some translations, at least in English, read so obtuse it makes one wonder if anyone solved the riddles?

Don’t those building blocks of story present an improv composition, crossing centuries? The various folklorists, poets, playwrights, and all manner of tale tellers, as band members, each contributing a line, a section, a beat. A constructivist crafting in the cobbling together of a tale, based on recreations and creative outputs, “findings” by the ancients. Could the tale even rise to the creation of a myth about a myth because of an improvisational construction? Is it not worth seeking an exploration?

Up through story-making machinations across many eras, along trails of theologies and scholarship, modern psychologies and art pieces surged the tale with its riddle.  It arrived via an artist and musician of the contemporary age, Mike Kelley, who reconceived of it conceptually and further manifested the artistic possibilities across the senses creating a chord of communication across cultures. The effect of an art piece presenting as much as Kelley’s Riddle Of The Sphinx makes for quite a lot of sea to explore. It, and its maker, are something to behold, and radically so.

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A few end notes for further reading:

* see, “Coloured hearing, colour music, colour organs, and the search for perceptually meaningful correspondences between color and sound”, Charles Spence, Crossmodal Research Laboratory, University of Oxford. I-Perception, 2022, Vol. 13(3).

**see, “The Power of Patience: Teaching students the value of deceleration and immersive attention”. Jennifer L. Roberts. Harvard Magazine, November-December 2013.

*** see, “Stimulus Complexity Can Enhance Art Appreciation: Phenomenological and Psychophysiological Evidence for the Pleasure-Interest Model of Aesthetic Liking”. Tammy-Ann Husselman, Edson Filho, Luca W. Zugic, Emma Threadgold, and Linden J. Ball. Journal of Intelligence, April 2024.