Dopo quelli di Monaco (Haus der Kunst, 2017) e Berlino (Akademie der Künste, 2018) non è ahimé previsto alcun altro allestimento della splendida mostra dedicata alla Free Music Production: questo ha affermato il suo curatore, Markus Müller, a margine della presentazione del volume FMP - The Living Music (Wolke Verlag, 2022) da cui quelle esposizioni sono scaturite. Sarà proprio Müller, assieme a Anna Maria Ostendorf, a prendersi carico dell'immenso archivio storico e artistico della gloriosa etichetta nei prossimi anni, trasferendolo da Borken alla capitale tedesca dopo la scomparsa lo scorso settembre di Jost Gebers. E date la competenza, la passione e la grande dedizione espresse nel corso dell'incontro pubblico che si è tenuto sabato scorso a Londra, c'è di che ben sperare.
The record label and improvisational music production platform Free Music Production / FMP was founded in West Berlin in 1968. Its radically expansive focus on contemporary improvisational music and avant-garde jazz were global undertakings from the beginning. Cutting across diverse musical and cultural practices, FMP invited musicians and composers to explore a range of performance possibilities, from its renowned recordings to concerts, festivals (Total Music Meeting), interdisciplinary workshops (Workshop Freie Musik) and exhibitions. It has involved hundreds of musicians, composers and artists from around the world in a divided Berlin, at a time when the city was positioned as the beacon of Western artistic freedom.
Working on the boundary between radical experimentation in sound structures and virtuosity in playing, FMP facilitated some of the most accomplished and important cultural achievements out of West Berlin in the postwar period. However, what the label, which functioned like a collective, achieved culturally and musically also extended into the political realm, especially as one of the first platforms to challenge the Cold War ideological system through its collaborations with East German musicians. With a catalogue of more than 500 published recordings, countless concerts, more than 100 festivals and an archive of films, photographs, posters and other graphic work, FMP represents a wholly unique example of lasting artistic radicality that challenges previous norms of collective practice.