Three NYC modern-art museums reverberate with musical inspiration
During a recent visit to the New Museum, on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, music reverberated throughout the building. The sound was emanating from the fourth floor, where Shedrick Mitchell, seated behind a Hammond B-3 organ with seven wood-encased Leslie speakers nearby, was improvising a medley of gospel hymns, soul and pop songs, and his own original melodies.
Notably, this wasn’t a concert. Mitchell was activating “A Heavenly Choir,” an installation featured in a mid-career retrospective of works by the Chicago-based artist Theaster Gates. He’s globally known as a multi-disciplinary artist – a ceramicist, sculptor, archivist and community planner. But Gates is also a musician, and works in his show, titled “Young Lords and Their Traces” (at the New Museum through Sunday, February 5th), echo that pursuit.
It's rare to see a music-based art exhibition in a museum. Traditionally, these institutions showcase visual work inspired by music, or curate live performances and DJ sets for special openings or events.
But something different is happening now at three major Manhattan institutions, all at once. Along with the Gates show at the New Museum, the Guggenheim Museum is currently showing “Nick Cave: Forothermore,”an imaginative overview of art objects deeply indebted to their creator’s connection to music. Meanwhile, at the Museum of Modern Art, “Just Above Midtown: Changing Spaces” revisits a historic New York gallery in which music was a core concern.
