If one were to have visited the Modern Museum of Art on 53rd street in Manhattan New York between September 8, 2021, and January 30, 2022, having shown vaccination proof and upon entering the building one would immediately be thrust into the aural space of Who is Queen? The soundtrack, played on loop, includes piano and stringed orchestral notes overlain with moving monologues in male voices and extends throughout the place of New York’s Modern Museum of Art. From the moment one steps inside Adam Pendleton plays virtuoso with the space of the institution that is MOMA, creating a unique entanglement of the place that is MOMA and the various scaffoldings of the space that comprised his work. Injecting the aurality of his piece into the cacophonous and multi-aural space that is already embedded in the building’s architecture and exhibit design, Pendleton used projected film and monumental structure to flesh out the space of this monumental artwork that occupied the main exhibition space at MOMA.
In a recent discussion of the Black Paint Curriculum Lab about the exhibit, a photograph, taken some weeks previous by a visitor to the museum, was shared. My reaction to the photograph surprised me. I was shocked by how my three-dimensional experience had been flattened. The still image shows the many components of the exhibit in one frame and in, an instant, flattens the space of Pendleton’s installation bringing into a single frame of reference various parts of the exhibit I had seen in a different chronological order and from different angles.
Curious, I explored the feelings I had while visiting the museum and the exhibits nearby Who is Queen? In a neighboring hall sits Richard Serra’s monumental piece Equal*. Where, standing amidst monumental blocks of forged steel, the symphonic notes of Pendleton’s audio loop floated about the room, inescapable without earplugs. The placard for Serra’s piece read, “the massive sculpture may overwhelm the viewer and…invite contemplation.” Which struck me as resonant with Pendleton’s exhibition in the main gallery.
The three dimensionality in vertical height and horizontal space of Pendleton’s piece created a space that required exploration and could not be ‘seen’ at one look, contrary to what the photograph might lead us to believe. I invite the reader to look for things the photograph depicts, from the light bulb at the second-floor level to the wall tapestry at the fourth-floor level and imagine from which perspective one might be able to view and observe them within the space of the museum. To view the installation of Pendleton’s artwork, how must one move and contort one’s body and gaze to fit the space and achieve an encompassing view? Is an encompassing view required to appreciate or be inspired by his work?
Visiting museums and finding oneself seeing many objects, both new and familiar, is following a curriculum of sorts, one in which certain forms of etiquette are expected. Pendleton’s space at MOMA seemed to create a blending of the kinds of expected behaviors of the museum with a desire to engage or to at least understand the installation he designed. Rather ordinary questions of how to watch a film, for instance, while standing within an overwhelming structure with no closed walls or seating blurred the line between the sacred space of the museum which demands silence and stillness and the interactivity and high energy that is characteristic of Who is Queen? This pushing of what a museum experience could be, seems natural for a museum of modern art, but I wonder how this translates to other spaces and other museums?
My experience at the MOMA inspired questions for me about the experience of museum going, how audio can divide space, and the types of etiquette associated with viewing and interacting with monumental sculptures that are often intended to ‘overwhelm the viewer.'
