Sound Work reference: Rooms, P.S.1, Institute for Art and Urban Resources, New York City,
Dimensions: 10 x 12 x 11 meters; 11 x 15 x 11 meters. Extant: June 9–26, 1976
The work at the PS1 in 1976 [untitled] was created with two high tones at the upper pitch threshold of hearing. If you take a tone and gradually raise it up, at one point it disappears. Just below that point where we can't hear any higher, as sound approaches that threshold, I noticed that the threshold wasn't a line, it was an area. It's an interesting area because, in it, the sound is both there and not there.
The text panel of the work's drawing begins: 'Two high soft tones mixing at the upper threshold of hearing'. It is a clear example of the idea that the sound itself is not the work. You don't even hear it as sound. It is the idea of using sound to add a presence, growing a new place with a sound presence.
Max Neuhaus
Interview, by Gregory des Jardins, excerpts from a conversation between, Ischia, Summer 1995
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.