David Lang Soundscape SPECTERS OF NOON, Featured in The Menil Collection's New Exhibition

GRAMMY Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang has written an interactive soundscape, specters of noon, for The Menil Collection's new exhibition Allora & Calzadilla: Specters of Noon, on exhibit through June 2021. The installation includes seven large sculptural works by Puerto Rico-based artists Jennifer Allora (b. 1974) and Guillermo Calzadilla (b. 1971) that use sounds, cast shadows, and novel sculptural materials to explore the concept of "noon," the listless time when "delirious visions momentarily reign in the blinding light." Noon, as a metaphor for the uncertainties defining our time.

Lang worked closely with Allora and Calzadilla to develop an eight-hour cycle of constantly evolving sounds that will run daily in the exhibition, and according to Lang, "sonically sculpt the day." A combination of instrumental, vocal, and electrical recordings, the sounds will respond to and activate the works of art on view. Working with in-house sound designer Paul Vazquez and with musical direction by Crossing founder and conductor Donald Nally, members of the GRAMMY-winning new-music choir The Crossing individually recorded tracks in Philadelphia, to create the interactive audio that is broadcast from speakers strategically placed throughout the installation. Entelechy draws on the songs of canaries as inspiration, while Blackout finds the singers competing with the hums and explosions of arcing electricity.

The Crossing has a long relationship with Allora and Calzadilla, having premiered lifespan at Philadelphia's Fabric Workshop and Museum in 2014 it ran for 300 performances. lifespan was part of a collaborative project with the Philadelphia Museum of Art titled Intervals and including a world premiere, In the midst of things, another work developed by and featuring The Crossing. The Crossing has performed lifespan at the Cleveland Museum of Art and Donald Nally has directed it at the National Gallery in Osaka, Japan; the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, Germany; and the Art Gallery of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. Blackout was first developed by the artists, Lang, and Nally at the Lisson Gallery in London.

More Information
Allora & Calzadilla: Specters of Noon
Sep 26, 2020 - Jun 20, 2021
The Menil Collection | 1533 Sul Ross St | Houston, TX
Link: www.menil.org/exhibitions/335-allora-calzadilla-specters-of-noon