Nights at the museum: the bands that have gigged in galleries

Nosheen Iqbal — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 13:18:50 +0000

Animal Collective's forthcoming installation at the Guggenheim comes from a proud tradition of pop mash-ups with the art world

It's better than copying Jackson Pollock and more ambitious than pretending to be full-time robots. The only surprising thing about Animal Collective taking over New York's Guggenheim museum is that nobody thought of it sooner. But the Brooklyn experimental pop crew are collaborating with video artist Danny Perez on a site-specific installation for the museum's 50th anniversary.

The idea is to "transform the rotunda into a kinetic, psychedelic environment". From the sounds of it, the piece – Transverse Temporal Gyrus – could beef up the band's future live shows considerably. Ticket-holders are promised video projections and visual abstractions; I'd count on at least a couple of ethereal black-and-white film shorts and Cy Twombly-ish swiggles projected on the walls. The band won't be performing in the space, but the three-hour show will include recorded music composed for the event.

The Guggenheim's curators have pulled off a neat trick. Of all the Brooklyn-based bands experimenting with art rock, this lot are the best choice to fill the space. Just imagine their bass bouncing through Frank Lloyd Wright's iconic space, their blissed-out rave-pop sliding down the spiral walls.

Animal Collective are not the first to try the art-pop mash-up, though. Plenty of bands have played live shows in galleries or museums. Blur's comeback started with a gig at the railway museum in Colchester. Pet Shop Boys have also played in several modern art institutions. And seeing the Strokes perform among 50ft dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum in 2006 is probably one of the most surreal gigs I've been to.

However, artistic intervention in a public institution, mixing musicianship with modern art, is a little less common. There's the Velvet Underground getting it on with Andy Warhol, and Kevin Shields curating and soundtracking an exhibition of Patti Smith's polaroids. Similarly, Massive Attack's 3D and UnitedVisualArtists worked on Volume at the V&A, another site-specific piece. The former built the sounds, synchronised to fit a luminous installation of columns in the foyer of the building in 2005. The audio-visual sculpture could only be triggered by visitors moving inside and around the piece, like a Dan Flavin show crossed with Kraftwerk.

Last year, David Byrne of Talking Heads brought his museum piece, Playing the Building, to London's Roundhouse. Originally staged in Stockholm's Färgfabriken gallery, Byrne's interactive installation was a sublime bit of mechanical doodling. Visitors were invited to the show to play an organ connected by trailing tubes and wiring to the walls, girders and beams of the building. Bizarre, but properly seductive. As I'm sure Animal Collective will be.

Nosheen Iqbal

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Animal Collective let loose on New York’s Guggenheim museum

Sean Michaels — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 11:47:59 +0000

For one night only, the feral indie crew are to transform the esteemed art institution into a 'kinetic, psychedelic' jungle

Animal Collective are to take over New York's Solomon R Guggenheim museum, transforming the art gallery into a "kinetic, psychedelic" installation. The Brooklyn trance-pop gang will collaborate with artist Danny Perez for a one-night-only exhibition, Transverse Temporal Gyrus.

The 4 March event is part of the Guggenheim's 50th anniversary celebrations. After gigs by Yeasayer and Paul Banks last autumn, and one whole day with free museum admission, the gallery will now see its rotunda turned over to the architects of Merriweather Post Pavilion. Their creative partner, film-maker Danny Perez, worked on the band's videos for Who Could Win a Rabbit and Summertime Clothes, and directed their new art-film, ODDSAC.

"One of the things that you notice almost immediately in the jungle are the birds," Animal Collective wrote about the installation. "What are they saying? Does each variation serve a purpose? Why are there repetitions? Is there a pattern or is that just your imagination?" Over the course of Transverse Temporal Gyrus – and across space and time! – the group aim to provoke similar questions. To this end they will use video projections, costumes, props and original recorded music.

"As New Yorkers we are all familiar with the everyday noise around us – the car alarms, the subway trains braking, the music in bars ... Do we not realise how these sounds are affecting us? How they make us feel or act? With this in mind we wanted to create an environment where people could take some time to listen to other kinds of sounds and get away from those familiar sounds of the city. Keeping in mind the birds of the jungle, we've created an array of sounds with Animal Collective's music that is seemingly random – or is it?"

Visitors to the exhibition will be free to explore the group's "mysterious hideaway", wandering over the museum's ramps and across its open spaces. All this, Animal Collective promise, will help to "to unite [our sounds] with the inside of your brain". We just hope it doesn't hurt.

Tickets to the exhibition go on sale this morning at 10am EST.

Sean Michaels

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Nights at the museum: the bands that have gigged in galleries

Animal Collective let loose on New York’s Guggenheim museum