It takes awhile to reach The Cloisters museum. As you head up through Fort Tryon Park, you are immersed in nature. Leaves are falling on you, and birds are chirping everywhere. It’s hard to believe you are still on the island of Manhattan.
Following a long excruciating climb to the top of a hill, you come upon a medieval looking building. Charles Collens, the architect of The Cloisters used medieval architectural elements in order to have a place to display the masterpieces created during that era. After admiring the outside of the building and surrounding wooded areas, you travel inside the non air-conditioned structure, up too many flights of stairs, and finally reach the main hall. Once you catch your breath, you admire the inside of this magnificent museum, which opened in 1938. Sculptures from Italy, Spain, France, and Germany line the elaborate halls and chapels. You head directly for the main event though, held in the Fuentidueña Chapel.
The Fuentidueña Chapel is a beautiful space, both elegant in it’s architecture and use of the space. However, there is something different about the space now, for it is filled with forty speakers in an oval formation. The comparison between the modern black speakers and the medieval sculptures made from stone is quite striking. These mysterious speakers are part of a public art piece currently being displayed at The Cloisters. This piece, known as The Forty Part Motet, is the first presentation of contemporary art at this museum. The exhibit, created by Janet Cardiff, plays a choral work by the 1500s composer Thomas Tallis. Cardiff designed this installation in a way that explored the question of “how sound may physically construct a space in a sculptural way and how a viewer may choose a path through this physical yet virtual space”. You explore this idea by walking along the oval path listening to the various voices, including bass, baritone, alto, tenor, and a child soprano. You then step into the middle of the oval formation and listen to the entire recording play together. As you explore the room the way Cardiff imagined, and hear all of the different tones, it gives you a sense of how music is a combination of beautiful parts. The other people in the room are responding to it in different ways. Some are sitting with closed eyes, immersing themselves in the space and the sound. Some are walking around, like you, experiencing the separate sounds. Some are just standing and smiling, as if the sound brings some sort of fond memory to mind. After the eleven minute segment ends, people file out of the chapel, some unchanged by the experience, some vastly affected. The aura of the space however, is forever changed.
The Forty Part Motet is a perfect example of a site-specific public work. It is site specific because of the relationship between the sound installation and the chapel it is displayed in. The high ceilings and acoustically accurate materials in the chapel allow for a beautiful display of the music being played. It changes and at the same time conforms to the space it is presented in, just like any good site specific work should. The public art piece is simple, it is something that is only going to be displayed for a short period of time, and although it is not outside like most public art pieces, it is a temporary piece. The Forty Part Motet is a site-specific public work worth checking out. It combines space, sound and beauty that allows you to “climb inside the music”.
Click on the link below to hear a sample of the exhibit:
