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Past Exhibition

noontime and dawntime, from darkness to darkness

View of the West Gallery looking west with two black vitrines containing black porcelain vessels and steel blocks
Two black vitrines in the West Gallery containing black porcelain vessels and steel blocks

Edmund de Waal
noontime and dawntime, 2019
from darkness to darkness, 2019
Porcelain, steel, and plexiglass
© Edmund de Waal. Courtesy the artist and The Frick Collection. Photo: Christopher Burke

  521—West Gallery
   The music that inspired the artist
Audio file
Transcript

I listen to music all the time. Standing in front of that extraordinary picture by Goya of The Forge, with that the feeling of the man about to strike that hammer down onto the red-hot metal, gave me the aural focus for this exhibition, which is of a pulse. A rhythm. And a very strong, metallic, powerful movement of repetition, hence Steve Reich, hence Philip Glass, and also really Bach's French Suites and the Goldberg Variations. That kind of powerful pull through repetition and return. Here, in these pieces, there'll be these stacked pieces of steel, and this idea of a particular quality of sound, is absolutely the heart of the show.