Mondriaanhuis

This music case film features the piece ‘I Paint Modern’, written for the video installation in the New York Room of Mondriaanhuis Amersfoort. The images are a combination of visuals from the installation and the music recording sessions.

The video installation lets the visitors experience the last stage of Mondrian’s artistic development: During the tumultous WWII years, residing in NY, he struggles to free himself from the self-imposed limitations of working with black lines and coloured rectangles. Through using coloured lines, he finally arrives at using only shimmering squares of bright colour in his landmark piece Broadway Boogie-Woogie.

The music supporting the video installation took inspiration from Mondrian contemporary George Antheil (member of De Stijl) and Conlon Nancarrow’s early boogie-woogie based pieces for player piano. Also Bill Evans’ piano voicing techniques and contemporary pianist/composers like Nils Frahm were influential.

Where the works of Mondrian can seem very rigid from a distance, they actually prove to be very tactile and human upon a closer look. The Yamaha Diskklavier was chosen because I felt it has a similar combination of rigidity (it can play exact, programmed patterns) with the organic (wooden hammers touching real strings). Tenor saxophone (Tom Beek) was instrumental in connecting the music with the jazzy NY vibe of the forties.