John Perreault (1937-2015) was a poet, art curator and an art critic. Perreault used to write for the Village Voice and the Soho News. In his criticism Perreault welcomed and championed all sorts of new art forms: from Minimalism to realist painting and from Pattern Painting to Performance Art. Perrault used to be President of the American Section of the International Association of Art Critics. He was a Trustee of the Tiffany Foundation and maintained an art blog called Artopia: www.johnperreault.com
As a young poet Perreault appeared on the John Giorno Poetry Systems release ‘Disconnected’ (1974) and took part in the ‘Pornographic Poem’ with Robert Rauschenberg a/o that was released on John Giorno’s first record on The Intravenus Mind in 1967.
SLOWSCAN VOL. 26 comes with a 12-page booklet with biographical data and contains:
Side 1: Recorded Message (1969). Tape loop mixed over a soundscape of ambient sounds from a street in New York City. Duration 21:58 (excerpt).
Side 2: Traffic (1969). Recording of the street sounds audible in Perreault‚Äôs apartment between Bleeker and Hudson in NYC from 2 o’clock to 3 o’clock in the afternoon on 25 September 1969. “Some people turn on their radios to block out other sounds, such as traffic, and here when they turn on their radios they would get the very sounds they are trying to block” (John Perreault). Duration: 22:44 (excerpt).
Cover photography (detail taken from Street Works IV poster): Ira Joel Haber.