2009
Max Neuhaus created several sound installations that occupied interior architectural spaces, sometimes referred to as "rooms". These works were central to his shift from musical performance to using sound as a material to create a "place".
Drawings describing methods for the creation of spaces which, although visually alike, are transformed into contrasting places by Neuhaus with the addition of sound alone.
A few of his notable "rooms" include:
Exhibition: Rooms, PS1, 1976, Institute for Art And Urban Resources, New York City, USA. Dimentions: 10 x 12 x 11. Extant: June 9 – 26, 1976
First created for the Clocktower Gallery in New York and later reconstituted at the Frac Franche-Comté in France, this was a site-specific installation focused on the acoustics of a square room. The title came from the type of chairs Neuhaus found in the space.
● Three Similar Rooms (1989): Three 'Similar' Rooms by Max Neuhaus, Galleria Giorgio Persano, Turin, Italy, Extant: 1990-fall 2020 Exhibited by Giorgio Persano, this installation played with the similarities and differences in perception of three distinct spaces. The work continued his exploration of how subtle, continuous sound can define and differentiate otherwise identical or similar locations.
● Two Identica lRoom,1989 Sound Work Exhibition: Einleuchten, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany Dimensions: 14 x 8 x 11 meters; 14 x 8 x 11 meters Extant: November 11, 1989 – February 18, 1990.
'The first one, Two Identical Rooms (1989), which was done in Hamburg, takes two wings of a very large exhibition space and treats
them with sound textures which are opposite in nature. One on one side is like a fluid; it envelops you when you walk into the space. The other is a texture of very dense clicks which seems to be suspended over your head when you walk into the space. Both sounds are at levels which demand that you focus when you walk into the space. When you first enter these spaces, you see nothing and you hear nothing; after a few seconds through searching, your aural focus shifts and you realize you're in one of these textures. This work was in the context of the visual exhibition, two empty spaces adjoining other spaces which were highly charged with objects.
● Two Side for the'Same' Room,1990 Sound work references: Location: Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas Dimensions: 6 x 8 x 3 meters Extant: January 28 – April 22, 1990
The next one of these works took the idea to its extreme. It was called Two Sides of the 'Same' Room (Dallas, 1990). I took one room, placed a wall down its center dividing it into two spaces and then placed different sounds on each side. These sounds sounded identical, though, quite unlike Hamburg where the sounds were clearly different. The difference between the two spaces happened only after you spent a little time in each; each side evoked a completely different frame of mind even though they sounded identical. One sound evoked a feeling of openness; the other a tight and constricted feeling - taking one room and using sound to turn it into two places which are opposite yet sounded the same. The third of these pieces is the permanent one in Giorgio Persano's Gallery in Torino. It takes three spaces which are visually similar, not absolutely identical, and makes them into three different spaces using only two sounds. The rooms are in a row with two connecting doorways; each of the rooms on the ends has only one sound, and the room in the middle has both those sounds mixed together. The mixture isn't separable into its two parts; it forms a third space. Here the sounds were not as soft as in Dallas or in Hamburg, but they still demanded a shift in focus.
"Concentrations 22: Max Neuhaus, Two Sides of the Same Room," January 28-April 22, 1990. Dallas Museum of Art Archives, Exhibition Photography.
Various museum installations: Neuhaus also created "room" works in various museum settings, such as at MoMA, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris.
Drawing Study, Four 'Identical' Rooms, 2000 - Pencil on paper - 40 x 64 cm Sound work references: Unrealized proposal. The Studio drawing was created for a project that never materialized. The study Four 'identical' rooms, is part of the works Rooms
‘Identical’ Spaces text by Max neuhaus:
For a number of years, I have been interested in juxtaposing multiple spaces which are identical except for sound. At the Deichtorhallen in Harald Szeemann’s Einleuchten exhibition, the sound in one space was like a fluid. Once you focused on it, you were completely immersed in it; yet it was so soft you could un-focus at any time. The sound in the other space was a mixture of hollow woody sounds – a dense texture. But here it was sitting abouve your head, like a ceiling.
Most listeners insisted this space was much larger than the one with the fluid while in fact, they both had exactly the same shape and dimensions. -Part of my impetus for making a work this way could also have been to silence the Doubting Thomases, those people who were so convinced that they perceived space solely with their eyes that they thought this idea of transforming a space with sound alone was just talk. It was so nice to say: if it's just rhetoric, why are you sure that this room bigger than that one?
Max Neuhaus