Presenting sound art in a gallery setting is a unique challenge for any curator or designer. Variform, the long since closed art space run by acclaimed musician Patricia Wolf and her husband, was successful on that front by keeping visual distractions to a minimum—all the better to concentrate on the field recordings or drones pouring out of speakers placed around the room. Other spaces tend to pair the art with video or other works as complements to the sound.
Remembering to Remember: Experiments In Sound, the new exhibition co-curated by Roya Amirsoleymani and Felisha Ledesma at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA), aims for somewhere equidistant between those two approaches. The organization’s cavernous gallery space presents new and revived pieces from a collection of international artists with both contextual visual elements and zero interference.
The visual elements approach makes for a striking entry point to the exhibit. Four films are projected on the gallery’s east wall, the images equidistant from one another and with the same aspect ratio. In front of each film is a small bench with two sound boxes and headphones. The idea is easy enough to grasp: sit down, slip on the cans, get lost. Nearby is a table filled with keyboards and Eurorack gear from the Synth Library, an institution—which Ledesma helped co-found in 2016—that holds workshops and loans gear for artists of all skill levels. Volunteers from the library will be on hand, during special open hours at the exhibition, to encourage visitors to twist some knobs and plug in some patch cables. And in the center of the room is a small platform where live performances and workshops will take place.