My beloved and I went to see Ann Hamilton’s “The Event of a Thread” at the Park Avenue Armory last weekend, which was an art exhibit involving swings, a large curtain, pigeons, and –– hooray for me! –– people reading aloud, their words broadcast from radios tied up inside paper bags. It was a pretty precious exhibit, but a fun one, nonetheless, and of course I was dying to find out how one gets a gig as a reader. (They read excerpts from “Aristotle to Charles Darwin to the poet Ann Lauterbach.”)
Readers have pigeon friends.
A little bit more about Hamilton’s exhibit, from the Armory’s website:
“Visual artist Ann Hamilton combines the ephemeral presence of time with the material tactility for which she is best known to create a new large-scale installation for the Wade Thompson Drill Hall. Commissioned by the Armory, the event of a thread references the building’s architecture, as well as the individual encounters and congregational gatherings that have animated its rich social history. A multisensory affair, the work draws together readings, sound, and live events within a field of swings that together invite visitors to connect to the action of each other and the work itself, illuminating the experience of the singular and collective body, the relationship between the animal and the human. The address of the readers to the pigeons shifts at the end of each day, when a vocalist on the drill hall’s balcony serenades their release to flight. Each day’s song is cut with a record lathe, and the resulting recording is played back the next day.”
My post-visit research has indicated that unfortunately the readers were hired from SITI Company, which is an ACTING TROUPE.
“SITI Company is an ensemble-based theater company whose three ongoing components are the creation of new work, the training of young theater artists, and a commitment to international collaboration.
“SITI was founded in 1992 by Anne Bogart and Tadashi Suzuki to redefine and revitalize contemporary theater in the United States through an emphasis on international cultural exchange and collaboration.”
As I’m not particularly interested in pursuing acting, I think I would not have been in the running for this one. Damn you, Ann Hamilton!
Swingin’
*There’s always Tino Seghal!
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