Visitors to "Fig. 1 (these things we know)," the exciting new sound installation by Andy Graydon at the Honolulu Museum of Art, will begin to hear the show before they, well, don’t see it.
"You’ll hear voices as you come up through the Hawaiian Galleries," Graydon said by phone from the visiting artists’ residence at Spalding House in Makiki.
‘FIG. 1 (THESE THINGS WE KNOW)’
A sound installation by Andy Graydon
>> Where: Honolulu Museum of Art, 900 Beretania St.
>> When: 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 1 to 5 p.m. Sundays; Friday through March 15
>> Admission: $10
>> Info: honolulumuseum.org |
The installation will be empty of typical artworks but "furnished with spotlights and ropes that make a little squared-off spiral like a labyrinth, so you can’t see where the ‘objects’ will be, but you’ll be guided to them," said the 43-year-old artist, who grew up in Haiku, Maui.
He flew to Honolulu from Cambridge, Mass., where he recently relocated from Berlin with his wife, Henriette Huldisch, a curator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and their young son.
How can the objects be there if they’re not? Simple. You’ll conjure them, Graydon said.
"You’ll hear the sound of two speaking voices describing the objects and inviting you to project them with your imagination into the room, so that they materialize there in front of you," he said.
In addition to being invisible, the two central pieces will be ancient and cloaked in mystery: a Chinese jade "ts’ung" (tube) and a Hawaiian pohaku (stone) that may or may not have been used as a mirror. Graydon selected these and eight other artworks in the museum vaults last summer.
"You’ll hear me saying in English and Puakea Nogelmeier in Hawaiian, ‘These things we know … but we can’t tell you the entire story,’" Graydon said.
The object will be described with details such as textures, markings and colors without summarizing the whole. "And then, once you’ve imagined it, the voices invite you to touch it, pick it up, make it your own, in a way you’re not usually allowed to in museums."
Guests should feel free to stay for the whole circuit or leave any time.
But don’t expect to see the actual objects when you’re done.
"It’s very important to me that you’re not allowed to check yourself against the real thing. I would like the objects to exist in the mind’s eye," Graydon said.
Hold that thought and come listen.
