How does the Museum of Modern Art follow up on the success of the incredibly popular (I found it a little bland, but it was sold out almost every day I went) Tim Burton exhibit (the 3rd highest attendance among MOMA exhibits of all time)? By putting what I’m betting will be the least attended of recent MOMA exhibits: Bruce Nauman’s Days, a “sound scuplture” that consists of recorded voices saying the days of the week.
The above picture is not of the incomplete installation of the exhibit. That is the exhibit. I took some video to save everyone else a trip to the MOMA’s third floor:
I don’t claim to be much of an connoisseur, but this strikes me as an exhibit that could’ve been done with headphones. Or maybe the third floor bathrooms while people defecate. I think most people can get their fill of disconnected voices repeating the menial at their average airport.
Luckily, the guards get to wear ear plugs. Or else the MOMA might have had a rash of workplace violence incidents on their hands:
From the MOMA webpage:
A recent addition to the Museum’s collection, Bruce Nauman’s Days (2009) was created for, and debuted at, the 2009 Venice Biennale, where the artist represented the United States with the solo exhibition Bruce Nauman: Topological Gardens. Days is a “sound sculpture†consisting of a continuous stream of seven voices reciting the days of the week in random order. Fourteen suspended speakers are installed in two rows with one voice emanating from each pair of speakers as the visitor passes between them. There are men’s voices and women’s voices, old and young. Some speak swiftly, others with pause, each with his or her own cadence. The collection of distinctive voices produces a chorus—at times cacophonous, at others, resonant—and creates a sonic cocoon that envelops the visitor. The work invokes both the banality and the profundity of the passing of each day, and invites reflection on how we measure, differentiate, and commemorate time.
The stereo box was the most interesting and aesthetically pleasant feature of the exhibit:
