Performance:

Annea Lockwood
Piano Burning, 1968

Annea Lockwood’s Piano Burning transforms destruction into an evolving sonic journey. First conceived in 1968, the work sets a defunct piano alight, revealing a haunting arc of sound: the initial crackling of kindling, the tension of snapping strings, and finally the collapse into ash. Each stage unveils hidden sonic layers, turning a familiar musical object into a meditation on impermanence and transformation. Piano Burning is part of Lockwood’s Piano Transplants series, which includes other radical works such as Piano Drowning and Piano Garden. In these performances, pianos are submerged in water or left to decay in gardens, where natural forces reclaim them. Like Burning, these works blend performance and environmental process, highlighting the unpredictability of destruction and renewal. Resonating with Gustav Metzger’s Destruction in Art Symposium (1966), Piano Burning reclaims disintegration as a creative force. For Stavanger Secession 2025, it will be restaged live, in the courtyard of TOU.