In a perpetual state of flux, and resisting common classification in art history, sound has been used by contemporary artists for decades all over the world. Barbara London was among the first to exhibit experimental sound art, which she heard at alternative venues in downtown New York in the 1970s. In 1979, she curated the exhibition Sound Art at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA)—so early in the history of curating the medium that there was no need for another title—with works by Connie Beckley, Julia Heyward, and Maggi Payne (who taught at Mills College in the San Francisco Bay Area from 1972 to 2018). Due to the small space set aside for this presentation of sound art, then marginalized as a medium, the works were shown one at a time, in rotation, for a couple of weeks each.1 In the following decades, artists’ engagement with ever-changing technologies would open new possibilities for sound art and expand its audience, feeding London’s curatorial practice, which was already committed to this art form. London would forge close relationships with pioneering and up-and-coming artists approaching sound from a variety of disciplinary angles and pushing boundaries of art and technology with poetry, humor, irony, and politics. She worked with Bill Viola, Joan Jonas, and Brian Eno, to name a few, who were among the first to fine tune their respective video installations by using state-of-the-art loudspeakers, enabling them to place as much emphasis on sound as on image.2 She also facilitated connections between numerous visual artists and composer-musician-performers such as artist Bruce Nauman and composer Steve Reich, whose respective experiments with sound, music, and film would continue to influence each other.3 London founded the Video-media Exhibition & Collection Programs at MoMA, where she worked between 1970 and 2013, and organized other major exhibitions of sound art, including Looking at Music (2008), Looking at Music Side 2 (2009), Looking at Music 3.0 (2011) and Soundings: A Contemporary Score (2013).
Approaching sound as a material, the artists featured in Seeing Sound at KADIST attend to sounds in their surroundings that may go unnoticed and examine power structures within music, feminism, and labor. Marina Rosenfeld’s Music Stands (2019) transforms common sound equipment, such as the speaker and music stand, into a sonic ecosystem that amplifies sounds and speaks to the privileged access of hearing and sounding bodies. Using the rotary dial phone, one of the most important inventions of the last century, Aura Satz’s Dial Tone Drone (2014) invites us into an intimate dialogue about feminist histories within sound art. Samson Young’s video Muted Lion Dance (2014) peels back the musical accompaniments of the traditional Chinese lion dance performance to reveal the sound of the performers’ physical labor. The installations by Rosenfeld, Satz, and Young imaginatively unite sound, word, and silence in space and probe larger questions about these intangible but essential elements of daily life: How is communication mediated? Who has access to sound? What and who do we listen to? What is the role of technology?
With headphones notably absent, Seeing Sound cultivates a complex sonic environmental experience and allows for multiple modes of communal listening. Giving sound a visual and physical presence, the exhibition reflects on the ways in which artists have engaged with our often inattentive relationship to sound. As these sonic experiences in the gallery become a metaphor for broader social dynamics, Seeing Sound invites visitors to reflect on what has gone unlistened to and unattended at a time of need, solidarity, and care.
NOTES: 1. London, Barbara. “Sounding: From the 1960s to the present” in Soundings: A Contemporary Score. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2013. 2. ibid 3. London, Barbara. “Curator’s Perspective: Barbara London.” Online Lecture, Independent Curators International (ICI), April 6, 2021.
Seeing Sound is a traveling exhibition curated by Barbara London, with the support of Research Assistant Kristen Clevenson and produced by Independent Curators International (ICI). This exhibition and tour are supported, in part, by the Nokia Bell Labs Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) program and with the generous support of ICI’s Board of Trustees and International Forum.
Approaching sound as a material, the artists featured in Seeing Sound at KADIST attend to sounds in their surroundings that may go unnoticed and examine power structures within music, feminism, and labor. Marina Rosenfeld’s Music Stands (2019) transforms common sound equipment, such as the speaker and music stand, into a sonic ecosystem that amplifies sounds and speaks to the privileged access of hearing and sounding bodies. Using the rotary dial phone, one of the most important inventions of the last century, Aura Satz’s Dial Tone Drone (2014) invites us into an intimate dialogue about feminist histories within sound art. Samson Young’s video Muted Lion Dance (2014) peels back the musical accompaniments of the traditional Chinese lion dance performance to reveal the sound of the performers’ physical labor. The installations by Rosenfeld, Satz, and Young imaginatively unite sound, word, and silence in space and probe larger questions about these intangible but essential elements of daily life: How is communication mediated? Who has access to sound? What and who do we listen to? What is the role of technology?
With headphones notably absent, Seeing Sound cultivates a complex sonic environmental experience and allows for multiple modes of communal listening. Giving sound a visual and physical presence, the exhibition reflects on the ways in which artists have engaged with our often inattentive relationship to sound. As these sonic experiences in the gallery become a metaphor for broader social dynamics, Seeing Sound invites visitors to reflect on what has gone unlistened to and unattended at a time of need, solidarity, and care.
NOTES: 1. London, Barbara. “Sounding: From the 1960s to the present” in Soundings: A Contemporary Score. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2013. 2. ibid 3. London, Barbara. “Curator’s Perspective: Barbara London.” Online Lecture, Independent Curators International (ICI), April 6, 2021.
Seeing Sound is a traveling exhibition curated by Barbara London, with the support of Research Assistant Kristen Clevenson and produced by Independent Curators International (ICI). This exhibition and tour are supported, in part, by the Nokia Bell Labs Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) program and with the generous support of ICI’s Board of Trustees and International Forum.