Whitney Biennial 2017

Floor 6

Born 1982 in New Orleans, LA
Lives in New Orleans, LA

Zarouhie Abdalian’s Chanson du ricochet is a subtle spatial and sonic intervention intended to shift a visitor’s experience of a site—in this case, from the Whitney’s sixth- and seventh-floor terrace staircases to the cityscape below. A voice emitted by speakers recites a series of words, including “machete,” “choke-strap,” “tenderizer,” “pincushion,” and “whip.” With this vocabulary, Abdalian calls attention to the often-invisible labor that goes into the development of buildings and neighborhoods. Here, the words reference the history of the Meatpacking District as well as that of the two previous locations of Chanson: antebellum structures at the New Orleans African American Museum of Art, Culture, and History and a road near a converted nineteenth-century factory on the campus of the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.

The work on view is a sound piece that can be heard on the staircase between the sixth and seventh floors.