Promenade du Pin

Max Neuhaus (Beaumont, USA, 1939 – Maratea, Italy, 2009)
Collection : Fonds cantonal d'art contemporain (FCAC)
 

As a classical musician and experimental percussionist, Max Neuhaus played alongside legends of contemporary music on stages around the world in the 1960s. At the age of twenty-eight, he decided to give up concerts and dedicate himself to creating sound works for outdoors. Influenced by John Cage, whose work he performed, he explored the broader realm of sound, from the cacophony of the city to pieces of music audible underwater, from the murmur of telephone conversations to recordings of conveyor belts. In 2002, on the Promenade du Pin in Geneva, he created a sound piece reserved for attentive walkers and listeners. Two lateral grilles emitting sound were the only visual signs of the presence of an installation on the ground of this tree-lined plaza. In this modest, leafy garden crisscrossed by paths, the pioneer of sound installations created a perceptive environment that does not quite qualify as music, nor takes a visual form. His work, composed on a computer from sounds recorded on site, unfolds in a defined space, a three by ten meter square, and can be enjoyed anytime, day or night, all year round. Max Neuhaus sought to produce a new auditory perception of the surrounding space. In the particular case of this garden at the heart of the city, that perception takes place between silence and the noise of cars.
Article commissioned by P3Art
Notice: Séverine Fromaigeat, translation: Matthew Cunningham  

Links: www.p3art.ch