Radio Rocks, Vitrine Window
1998 / 2006

Baronessa Lucrezia Durini Commission
Permanent Installation, Bolognano, Italy
Local, world band shortwave, and microwave frequencies
41 x 35 x 35 inches

Baronessa Lucrezia Durini commissioned the first permanent installation of Radio Rocks for the Second International Free Forum Bolognano in June, 2006. Lucrezia Durini, a patron of the arts and Joseph Beuys supporter, created a permanent art environment in the village by acquiring a dozen buildings and inviting celebrated artists to make works for vetrinas and store fronts. Each evening the works are illuminated until dawn. The ancient town with its medieval streets and glass-encased tableaux evokes a Felliniesque experience. The environs are further enriched by Piantagione Paradise, Beuys’ utopian gesture to reinstate biodiversity by planting 7000 varieties of trees.
Radio Rocks is the only work dedicated to sound and occupies an enclosed vitrine in the central piazza. Speakers incorporated within the vitrine walls amplify the sound at a level that harmonizes with the quiet rippling of the nearby town fountain. By employing amulets of galena and pyrite crystals to access local, world band short wave and microwaves, Bradshaw returns, in part, to one of her earliest bodies of work, Reliquaries, 1972-73. In these small glass-encased boxes she ‘captured’ detritus of artists, filmmakers and composers of particular significance to her to symbolize their spiritual power to inspire. Similarly, the murmur of her Radio Rocks mingles human evocations with echoes of the Big Bang.