1982
Statement written about 1982 or 1983 in response to the French Ministry of Culture's incredulity as my proposal for the Metro.
Although I work in the cultural context of museums, many of these installations have been in public places: on the street or as part of transportation systems. I am always surprised when people ask me why I am interested in working in such places: as if these places were somehow unworthy of serious aesthetic endeavors. The idea being, I suppose, that unless we carefully prepare and maintain special places like museums and concert halls, and educate audiences in how to perceive works of art within them, the aesthetic experience cannot occur.
I feel the opposite, i.e. that the aesthetic experience is natural to the human being, a phenomenon of living, and further that it is highly unique to each individual. By limiting it to one singular approach or particular kind of place, we have codified and classified it to the point where we begin to endanger the possibility of its occurrence.
The impetus for the first sound installation was an interest in working with a public at large. Inserting works into their daily domain in such a way that people could find them in their own time and one their own terms. Disguising them within their environments in such a way that people discovered them for themselves and took possession of them -- lead by their curiosity into listening.
Max Neuhaus