Live on 5 Songs: David Schafer

Lobby Gallery

What Should a Museum Sound Like? is a new site-specific work by David Schafer that involves a text written in 1963 by Marcel Breuer, the architect for the Whitney Museum. Schafer worked with a voice actor to record the Breuer text, and translated the floor plans and elevation drawings of the Whitney Museum into a series of composed sounds using MetaSynth, a composition and sound design program that can translate images into sound. The voice and floor plan sounds are presented utilizing the speakers in the Martin Kersels installation, as well as a digitally modeled speaker cabinet in the form of the Whitney Museum’s building. Schafer is interested in Breuer’s declarations toward the Museum, specifically his opposition to it being represented as a place of business or light entertainment. His sound work questions the relevance of those ideas today, as well as explores the relationship of language to form and space.

Special Thanks to JBL Professional / Harman International for their assistance with the audio components, Catasonic, Tom Fitzpatrick, and Machine Histories; Los Angeles, CA.


This event is one in a series, Live on 5 Songs, curated by 2010 artist Martin Kersels, whose sculpture, 5 Songs, leads a double life as a stage for performance throughout the duration of the Biennial.

This event is free with museum admission; there are no special tickets or reservations required.