Vessel Orchestra

Last updated

The Vessel Orchestra is a sound-based art installation created by British artist Oliver Beer. It is the first sound-oriented installation ever commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The installation is composed of 32 objects from the museum's collection. Each object has a microphone placed in its hollow space in order to capture the natural sounds that each piece resonates. Beer chose each object for its unique pitch. For instance, a clay vase by Joan Miró resonates the musical note low F. The internal microphones, which do not touch the objects, are connected to a mixer, which is hooked up to a keyboard, therefore allowing a musician to "play" the objects, creating music. The installation was opened to the general public on July 2, 2019, [1] and was on display at the Met Breuer until August 11, 2019. [2] During the exhibit the installation played repeatedly a 20-minute loop of a composition by Beer. In addition, the instrument was played on Friday evenings during live music performances by guest musicians. [3] The installation includes two and a half octaves in a chromatic scale, from low C to high G. [1] It took Beer four years to create the installation. Some of the objects in the installation had never been on display in the museum before. [4] The project was co-curated by Lauren Rosati and Limor Tomer. [5]

Contents

List of works

Beer used the following objects in The Met's collection for Vessel Orchestra; works are listed as they appeared in the installation clockwise from the entrance. [6]

Note (SPN)WorkDateArtist / LocationMedia Accession number
B3Shiva vase1973 Ettore Sottsass Ceramic 2017.204
C4Vase1986 Alessandro Mendini , Sinya Okayama Stainless steel 1988.241
F4Trifoglio1969 Enzo Mari Ceramic 1988.184.4
G♭4Blue Mountain Horses1984 Rudy Autio Stoneware with colored glazes 1998.534
A♭3 Scofield Thayer 1923, cast 1924 Gaston Lachaise Bronze, glass 1984.433.30
A3Squared Up1985William DaleyStoneware 2000.527.1
D♭3 Rhyton in the shape of a birdca. early 1st millennium B.C.Northwestern Iran Ceramic 59.95
A♭2Mrs. Olin Levi Warner1886–87, cast 1897–98 Olin Levi Warner Bronze 98.9.6
C3Ewer19th centuryFranchi and Son Electroformed copper, silver plated and gilt 73.8.52
D2, E♭2, D3The Ming Sisters2003 Betty Woodman Glazed earthenware, epoxy resin, lacquer, paint 2003.413a–c
G♭2 Canaanite jarca. 1500–1400 B.C. Levant Ceramic 2001.761.9
E2Storage jar decorated with mountain goatsca. 3800–3700 B.C.Central IranCeramic, paint 59.52
D♭2Pot1975 Juan Hamilton Stoneware 1978.496.2
G2Vessel in form of female(?) figureca. 7th–6th century B.C.Iran, Luristan, Chekka SabzCeramic 43.89.3
C2Vase1901 Louis Majorelle Porcelain 2013.245.5
B♭3Guild vessel19th centuryGermany Pewter 1974.28.107
A2Axe Vessel1986 Gordon Baldwin Earthenware 1998.289
B♭2Fishca. 1947 Beatrice Wood Earthenware, lustered 47.126.2
F2Vase1942 Joan Miró , Josep Llorens Artigas Painted earthenware 1989.402
B2The Virgin1906, cast 1909 Andre O'Connor Bronze 18.38
E♭3Vase with archaistic patterns Qing dynasty (1644–1911), Qianlong period (1736–95) China Porcelain with green glaze and gilding (Jingdezhen ware) 14.40.400
F3Temple 71977 William Wyman Earthenware 1980.479
G♭3Spouted jarca. 9th–7th century B.C.Iran, Tepe Sialk Ceramic, paint 39.60.9
E3Ewer19th centuryFranchi and SonElectroformed copper, silver plated 73.8.8
D♭4Cooking potca. late 8th–7th century B.C.Levant, Lachish (modern Tell ed-Duweil, Israel)Cermanic 34.126.43
D4Jar with geometric designsca. 5300–4300 B.C.Central IranCeramic, paint 60.61.3
G4Vase with performance of dragon boatQing dynasty (1644–1911), Kangxi period (1662–1722)ChinaPorcelain painted with overglaze polychrome enamels (Jingdezhen ware) 14.40.83
E♭4Vessel #10631990 June Schwarcz Electroplated copper foil, enamel 1995.439
G3Vaseca. 1900–1910 Archibald Knox Pewter 1981.91
E4Measure1854–93 Carl Adolph Ferdinand Heidorn Pewter 1990.199.11

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Metropolitan Museum of Art</span> Art museum in New York City

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an art museum in New York City. It is the largest art museum in the Americas and fourth-largest in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adam Gopnik</span> American writer (born 1956)

Adam Gopnik is an American writer and essayist. He is best known as a staff writer for The New Yorker, to which he has contributed non-fiction, fiction, memoir, and criticism since 1986.

Calvin Tomkins is American an author and art critic for The New Yorker magazine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steina and Woody Vasulka</span> Collaborative video artist team

Steina Vasulka and Woody Vasulka are early pioneers of video art, and have been producing work since the early 1960s. The couple met in the early 1960s and moved to New York City in 1965, where they began showing video art at the Whitney Museum and founded The Kitchen in 1971. Steina and Woody both became Guggenheim fellows: Steina in 1976, and Woody in 1979.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quimbaya</span> Indigenous group in present-day Colombia

The Quimbaya (/kɪmbaɪa/) were a small indigenous group in present-day Colombia noted for their gold work characterized by technical accuracy and detailed designs. The majority of the gold work is made in tumbaga alloy, with 30% copper, which colours the pieces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ken Butler</span> American artist/musician

Kenneth Lee Butler is an American artist and musician, as well as an experimental musical instrument builder. His Hybrid musical instruments and other artworks explore the interaction and transformation of common and uncommon objects, altered images, sounds and silence. The idea of bricolage, essentially using whatever is "at hand", is at the center of his art, encompassing a wide range of practice that combines live music, instrument design, performance art, theater, sculpture, installation, photography, film/video, graphic design, drawing, and collage.

Marina Rosenfeld is an American composer, sound artist and visual artist based in New York City. Her work has been produced and presented by the Park Avenue Armory, Museum of Modern Art, Portikus (Frankfurt), Donaueschinger Musiktage, and such international surveys as documenta 14 and the Montreal, Liverpool, PERFORMA, and Whitney biennials, among many others. She has performed widely as an improvising turntablist, and served as co-chair of Music/Sound in the MFA program at the Milton Avery School of the Arts, Bard College, from 2007 to 2020. She has also taught at Harvard, Yale, Brooklyn College, and Dartmouth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haig Papazian</span> Musical artist

Haig Papazian is a Lebanese-Armenian multidisciplinary artist, composer, and architect born in Beirut and currently based out of New York. He is a founding member and violinist of Lebanese pop band Mashrou' Leila.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William the Faience Hippopotamus</span> Egyptian hippopotamus figurine

"William", also known as "William the Hippo", is an Egyptian faience hippopotamus statuette from the Middle Kingdom, now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, where it serves as an informal mascot of the museum. Found in a shaft associated with the Upper Egyptian tomb chapel of "The Steward, Senbi", in what is now Meir, William dates from c. 1961 BC – c. 1878 BC, during the reigns of Senusret I and Senusret II. This 20 cm figurine in Egyptian faience, a clay-less material, has become popular not only for his endearing appearance, but also because his defining characteristics illustrate many of the most salient facets of craft production in ancient Egypt during this time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oliver Beer (artist)</span> British artist

Oliver Beer is a British artist who lives and works in Kent and Paris. He graduated in 2009 from the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, University of Oxford, England and in 2007 from the Academy of Contemporary Music in England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jennie C. Jones</span> American artist

Jennie C. Jones is an African-American artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Her work has been described, by Ken Johnson, as evoking minimalism, and paying tribute to the cross-pollination of different genres of music, especially jazz. As an artist, she connects most of her work between art and sound. Such connections are made with multiple mediums, from paintings to sculptures and paper to audio collages. In 2012, Jones was the recipient of the Joyce Alexander Wien Prize, one of the biggest awards given to an individual artist in the United States. The prize honors one African-American artist who has proven their commitment to innovation and creativity, with an award of 50,000 dollars. In December 2015 a 10-year survey of Jones's work, titled Compilation, opened at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, Texas.

The year 2016 in art involves various significant events.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Met Breuer</span> Defunct art museum in New York City

The Met Breuer was a museum of modern and contemporary art at Madison Avenue and East 75th Street in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City. It served as a branch museum of the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 2016 to 2020.

Kevin Beasley is an American artist working in sculpture, performance art, and sound installation. He lives and works in New York City. Beasley was included in the Whitney Museum of American Art's Biennial in 2014 and MoMA PS1's Greater New York exhibition in 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaret Noble (artist)</span> American conceptual artist (born 1972)

Margaret Noble is an American conceptual artist, sound artist, installation artist, teacher and electronic music composer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arthur Jafa</span> American artist and cinematographer

Arthur Jafa is an American video artist and cinematographer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Firas Abou Fakher</span> Lebanese composer and musician

Firas Abou Fakher is a Lebanese composer, musician, producer and writer. He is best known as a composer, guitarist, and keyboardist with indie rock band Mashrou' Leila and the co-founder of Last Floor Productions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kaarel Kurismaa</span> Estonian artist

Kaarel Kurismaa is the first and one of the most important sound art and sound installation artists in Estonia. His work also expands into the field of painting, animation, public space monumental art, stage installations. In Estonian art history, Kurismaa’s significance lies mostly in the pioneering work with kinetic art and with keeping its traditions alive. Kurismaa stands as one of Estonian sound art scene’s central icons. His idiosyncratic work serves as a foundation for Estonian sound and kinetic art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carl Gerges</span> Lebanese musician and architect (born 1987)

Carl Gerges is a Lebanese musician and architect. Gerges has been featured on the cover of L'officiel Levant and on the cover of Architectural Digest Middle East as an architect; and on the Middle East edition of Rolling Stone magazine and GQ Middle East as a musician.

<i>Before Yesterday We Could Fly</i> Exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room is an art exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The exhibit, which opened on November 5, 2021, uses a period room format of installation to envision the past, present, and future home of someone who lived in Seneca Village, a largely African American settlement which was destroyed to make way for the construction of Central Park in the mid-1800s.

References

  1. 1 2 Smith, Steve (2019-07-10). "In Review: Oliver Beer, Vessel Orchestra". National Sawdust Log. Retrieved 2019-09-10.
  2. Walls, Seth Colter (2019-07-16). "He Turned the Met Museum's Collection Into an Orchestra". The New York Times. Retrieved 2019-09-10.
  3. Schaefer, John (2019-07-12). "The Secret Sound Of The Vessel Orchestra". WNYC. Retrieved 2019-09-10.
  4. Gopnik, Adam (2019-08-19). "If You Listen" . The Talk of the Town. The New Yorker. Vol. 95, no. 23. p. 15. Online: "Making Music from the Met's Forgotten Treasures". The New Yorker. 2019-08-12. Retrieved 2019-09-10.
  5. Rosati, Lauren (2019-07-02). "In Conversation: Oliver Beer's Vessel Orchestra and the Democracy of Sound". The Met. Retrieved 2019-09-27.
  6. Oliver Beer: Vessel Orchestra (Exhibition guide). New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2019. OCLC   1109395603. Archived from the original on 2022-04-17.

Further reading