In the first concert, colours begin to resonate and sounds to glow. The harp duo follows in the footsteps of the American painter Marcia Hafif and her concept of Radical Painting. This movement of the 1980s and 1990s reduces painting to its very essence: to colour, to matter, to surface. Monochrome planes unfold a quiet intensity, free from representation and narrative. The colour speaks for itself – in its density, its texture, its presence. Radical Painting sees itself at the same time as a counter-concept to the arbitrariness of the art world: as a persistent insistence on the purity of the medium, on the essential.

This idea of reduction, of concentration, finds its echo in the concert programme. The composer John Cage, too, sought the core of sound, the moment when listening becomes a conscious act. Like Hafif, he was born in California – a quiet biographical connection that continues here in a shared artistic stance: in a trust in the simple, the open, the essential.

This four-part series of events is supported by Swisslos Fonds Kanton Aargau, the FG Pfister Culture and social Foundation, the Hans and Lina Blattner Foundation, and the Ruth & Edith Suter Foundation.

Art Tune 1: Marcia Hafif, Black Painting VIII: Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Umber, 1980

«Sound Layering»: Lea Magdalena Knecht and Joanna Thalmann, Harp
«In a Landscape»: John Cage

Further dates:

9th June 2026 12.15 pm: Art Tune 2
8th September 2026 12.15 pm: Art Tune 3
3rd November 2026 12.15 pm: Art Tune 4