Art Matters: Taking Back the Steel Drum

December, 2013

 

 

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Findlay hosted “7 Drums 7 Artists,” a cross-disciplinary tribute to the steel pan at NeueHouse.

At the heart of the project were seven artworks, created by artists (including Rita Ackerman and Olaf Breuning), musicians and scientists, each of which incorporated a steel drum. But “7 Drums 7 Artists” was also partly a tribute to Dr. Elliot Mannette, the 82-year-old Trinidadian inventor of numerous game-changing steel-drum innovations (many with impressive-sounding names like Invader Lead, Quad-duet, Six Bass). On Wednesday, he chatted on stage with the Swedish electronic musician Olof Dreijer, who played the audience eerie electronic soundscapes built from steel-drum samples. The day before, Mannette had appeared in conversation with Brian Greene, a physicist at Columbia and the author of popular science books on string theory.

Brian Greene, Stephon Alexander and Elliot Mannette

Will Smith and Elliot Mannette

Brian Greene, Elliot Mannette, Everard Findlay, Stephon Alexander

Peter Doig and Elliot Mannette



Everard Findlay