Output details

Annuciation

A sound installation commissioned as part of A vision of Central Europe, curated by Luc Tuymans, Brugge Centraal, October 2010 - January 2011 (http://www.kunstaspekte.de/index.php?tid=66130&action=termin).

The work juxtaposed the two models of the monastery and the stadium, to reflect upon the shared iconography of opposing symbolic regimes and the migration of meaning between incompatible ideologies. The installation was designed for, and sited in, the Grand Seminary, a 17th century Cistercian abbey in Bruges, now partly used as a training centre for clergy. It used 20 bell-shaped loudspeakers salvaged from a 1970s public address system at the Great Strahov Stadium, Prague. Decommissioned in 2002, during the Communist era it was the world’s second largest sport facility and was used for synchronised gymnastics. The provenance of the speakers and their destination suggests an architectural parallel between cloisters and terraces and an aspiration for scale reflected in the respective designation of the two largely redundant structures as 'Grand' and 'Great'. The title of the work made references to the theme in altar paintings by the Flemish master Hans Memling (1489, located in Bruges) and Jan Van Eyck (1434) while also bringing to mind the etymological proximity of 'annunciation' to 'announcement', the primary function of both bells and loudspeakers. The soundtrack, a field recording of a bee-hive, simultaneously evoked bee-keeping as a feature of monastic life and the noise of a crowd. The presentation of the work as a part of a biennale-style international art event provided the opportunity to draw further parallels among the symbolic functions of participation, pilgrimage and spectatorship. Since Autumn 2013 the work has been permanently sited in Concetrgebouw Brugge, a classical music venue, to further extend these symbolic connotations.