Pianos as Art, not Music

A collaborative effort by Shauna Holiman and Penny Putnam, “Piano as Art” is an exhibition in which old pianos have been dismantled and worked into various designs and shapes.

What took me immediately about this body of work wasn’t the novelty behind using a musical instrument for visual art, but rather that most, if not all of the parts used had once been used by a numerous people; because of that every single piece was unique, especially the keys. Another plus is that the body of work ranges from somewhat abstract pieces like “Elegy” to more direct and recognizable works like “Dragon;” this, for me, gives the artists immense creditability as they’re not simply just separating parts and putting them on display, but creating unique entities with the parts they’ve found.

Both Ms. Holiman and Putnam find a great balance between each piano part’s own structure and how to use that said structure in a larger effort.