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Allora & Calzadilla: Intervals, 2014. Re-configured acrylic lecterns and dinosaur bones. Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artists. In collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia. Photo credit: Carlos Avendaño.

Allora & Calzadilla, The Great Silence, 2014. 3-channel HD video installation. 16:22 minutes. Courtesy of the artists. In collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia. Photo credit: Carlos Avendaño.

Allora & Calzadilla, Lifespan, 2014. Hadean period rock sample and 3 vocalists. Performed by The Crossing, composition by David Lang. Approximately 15 minutes. Courtesy of the artists. In collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia. Photo credit Constance Mensh.

Portrait of the artists. Allora & Calzadilla: Intervals, 2014. Re-configured acrylic lecterns and dinosaur bones. Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artists. In collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia. Photo credit Constance Mensh.

Allora & Calzadilla: Intervals, 2014. Re-configured acrylic lecterns and dinosaur bones. Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artists. In collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia. Photo credit: Carlos Avendaño.

Allora & Calzadilla, The Great Silence, 2014. 3-channel HD video installation. 16:22 minutes. Courtesy of the artists. In collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia. Photo credit: Carlos Avendaño.

Allora & Calzadilla, Lifespan, 2014. Hadean period rock sample and 3 vocalists. Performed by The Crossing, composition by David Lang. Approximately 15 minutes. Courtesy of the artists. In collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia. Photo credit Constance Mensh.

Portrait of the artists. Allora & Calzadilla: Intervals, 2014. Re-configured acrylic lecterns and dinosaur bones. Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artists. In collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia. Photo credit Constance Mensh.

Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla

Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla, known professionally as Allora & Calzadilla, explore music’s capacity to evoke an ancestral time and to interrogate what makes us human. Through live performances, films, sound, and sculpture, the artists take on various notions of the interval—the time between events, the measure between two points in space, or the range between musical notes—in order to discover possible ways to reconsider the distance between our present and our past.

Each Allora & Calzadilla work on view in Allora & Calzadilla: Intervals stems from a cultural artifact or a vibrant remainder from various moments in history—whether the remains of nineteenth-century elephants, the fragmented bones of dinosaurs, a prehistoric figurine, or the oldest musical instrument ever discovered. Choral and orchestral performances reimagine concerts from another century, and an intimate vocal score produces a new friction between human presence and the prehistoric past. As archaeological exercises that unsettle linear time, the works in this exhibition wrestle with the abyss that lies between the human experience and our evolving place within the larger universe.

Bio

Jennifer Allora (born 1974, Philadelphia) and Guillermo Calzadilla (born 1971, Havana) have collaborated on an extensive body of work since 1995. Through a research-based approach, their works trace intersections of history, material culture, and politics through a wide variety of mediums, namely performance, sculpture, sound, video, and photography. Their work has been exhibited and collected widely in public institutions and private collections. Recent solo exhibitions have been presented at the Nicola Trussardi Foundation, Milan (2013); Indianapolis Museum of Art (2012); the US Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale (2011); the Museum of Modern Art (2010); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2008); Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (2008); Serpentine Galleries, London (2007); and the Renaissance Society, Chicago (2007). Among numerous group exhibitions, they have participated in Documenta 13, Kassel, Germany (2012); the 5th, 7th, and 10th Gwangju Biennials, South Korea (2004, 2008, 2014); and the 24th and the 29th São Paulo Biennial (1998, 2010). The couple lives and works in San Juan, Puerto Rico.