1976
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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".
Inaugural 1976 show, Rooms, which has since become a landmark in the art history of 1970s New York. The artists used classrooms, stairwells, windows, closets, bathrooms, the boiler room, courtyard, and attic—often engaging directly with the existing architecture. Rooms catalyzed changes in the forms and methods of making art, and expanded ideas about how it could be shown.
A few of his notable "rooms" include:
Exhibition: Rooms, PS1, 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 'Identical' Room,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 Sides of 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.
Four 'Identical' Rooms 2000 by Max Neuhaus, (Unrealized )
Exhibition Photography."Concentrations 22: Max Neuhaus, Two Sides of the Same Room," January 28-April 22, 1990. Dallas Museum of Art Archives,