Exhibition

Allora & Calzadilla: Intervals

December 12, 2014–April 5, 2015

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

This exhibition of new and recent projects by Puerto Rico-based artists Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla explores 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. The exhibition unfolds over two sites: the Philadelphia Museum of Art and The Fabric Workshop and Museum.

Each Allora & Calzadilla work on view 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.

Location

The Fabric Workshop and Museum
First, Second, and Eighth Floors

Opening Reception

Friday, December 12, 2014, 5:00-9:00 pm

5:00–7:30 pm | Reception at FWM
5:30 and 6:30 pm: Performances of Lifespan, a new vocal work
6:30–9:00 pm | Reception at Perelman Building, PMA
8:00 pm: Performance of In the Midst of Things, a new choral work

Reservations are recommended for this public event. RSVP by Thursday, December 4 to openings@philamuseum.org, call (215) 235-7469, or register on-line through Eventbrite®.

A shuttle will be provided between FWM and the Perelman Building on a loop
from 6:30 to 9:30 pm.

Artist Talk:
Saturday, December 13, 2014, 3:00 pm at FWM


Schedule of Performances at The Fabric Workshop and Museum

The Crossing will be performing Lifespan 7 days a week at 1:00pm, 2:00pm, and 3:00pm

On the following Saturdays, The Crossing will instead be performing Lifespan at 3:00pm and 4:00pm:
2015
January 3, 10, 24 | February 21, 28 | March 21, 28

Lifespan will not be performed on the following dates:
2014
Saturday, December 13 | Wednesday, December 24 | Thursday, December 25 (Christmas Day) | Tuesday, December 30 | Wednesday, December 31

2015
Thursday, January 1 (New Year’s Day) | Sunday, January 4 | Wednesday, January 28 | Saturday, January 31 | Sunday, February 1 | Sunday, February 8 | Sunday, March 15 | Sunday, April 5

For more information about Allora & Calzadilla: Intervals at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Perelman Building visit www.philamuseum.org


Art in This Exhibition


Artists in This Exhibition


About the Artist

Jennifer Allora (American, born 1974)
Guillermo Calzadilla (Cuban, born 1971)

Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla 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. 


About the Curator

The exhibition was organized by Carlos Basualdo, The Keith L. and Katherine Sachs Senior Curator of Contemporary Art (PMA), Erica F. Battle, The John Alchin and Hal Marryatt Associate Curator of Contemporary Art (PMA), Marion Boulton Stroud, Artistic Director and Founder (FWM), and Stephanie Alison Greene, Head of Exhibitions and Publications (FWM).


About the Artistic Collaborators at The Fabric Workshop and Museum

The Crossing is a professional chamber choir dedicated to new music and conducted by Donald Nally. Originally formed by a group of friends in 2005, the ensemble has been hailed as “a champion of new music” (New York Times, February 2014). The Crossing has presented over forty world premieres, performed at the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and at home in Philadelphia. The ensemble is frequently invited to collaborate with the world’s most imaginative composers and creative ensembles, including ICE, PRISM, eighth blackbird, the LA Philharmonic, and the American Composers Orchestra.

David Lang (born 1957, Los Angeles) is a New York-based composer who is active in many genres and media. His piece the little match girl passion, commissioned by Carnegie Hall, won the Pulitzer Prize in 2008 and a Grammy Award in 2010. Lang is Musical America’s 2013 Composer of the Year and recipient of Carnegie Hall’s Debs Composer’s Chair for 2013–2014. An active collaborator, he has worked closely with a diverse group of artists including Benjamin Millepied, Darren Aronofsky, and Ann Hamilton. Lang is co-Artistic Director of New York’s Bang on a Can, which he co-founded in 1987, and is Professor of Music Composition at the Yale School of Music.

Ted Chiang (born 1967, Port Jefferson, New York) is the author of Stories of Your Life and Others (2010) and The Lifecycle of Software Objects (2010). Raised on Long Island, Chiang later attended Brown University, where he received a degree in computer science. His work has received the John W. Campbell Award, four Nebula Awards, four Hugo Awards, four Locus Awards, a Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, a Sidewise Award, and a British Science Fiction Association Award. He lives outside of Seattle, Washington.


Support

This exhibition is organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and The Fabric Workshop and Museum. At the Philadelphia Museum of Art, this exhibition is part of the Live Cinema series. At The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Allora & Calzadilla created new work through its Artist-in-Residence Program. Allora & Calzadilla: Intervals has been funded at the Philadelphia Museum of Art by an anonymous donor, and at The Fabric Workshop and Museum by the Edna W. Andrade Fund of The Philadelphia Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, The Shipley-Miller Foundation, and by the Board of Directors and Members of The Fabric Workshop and Museum. Additional generous support of the two-site exhibition was provided by Colección Isabel y Agustin Coppel CI AC A.C., the Gladstone Gallery, Kurimanzutto Gallery, Lisson Gallery, and Galerie Chantal Crousel.