SONOMA, CA.- The Donum Estate—the award-winning Pinot Noir producer featuring a monumental sculpture collection—unveiled Sonic Mountain (Sonoma), a commissioned site-specific artwork by artist Doug Aitken.
Sonic Mountain (Sonoma) is situated within Donum’s lush eucalyptus grove. Mimicking a wind chime, the installation responds to changes in the surrounding environment and creates patterns of sound as wind moves through it. As a living and interactive artwork, Sonic Mountain (Sonoma) explores the fluidity of time by creating a continuously evolving experience that is activated by the surrounding landscape.
Working across and defying traditional understandings of genre, Aitken has developed a wide-ranging practice that extends from filmmaking to installation and architecture. Major projects include Sleepwalkers (2007), an exhibition at MoMA in which he covered the museum’s exterior walls with projections, and Underwater Pavilions (2017), a series of underwater sculptures temporarily installed off Catalina Island, California which swimmers, snorkelers and scuba divers could explore. Most recently, Aitken traveled across Massachusetts in a mirrored hot air balloon, organizing public “happenings” across the state, as part of his New Horizon project.
With Sonic Mountain (Sonoma), I wanted to create a living artwork, a piece that would change continuously and be performed by the natural environment, said Aitken.
Allan and Mei Warburg, Owners of The Donum Estate, added: We are thrilled with the latest addition to Donum. It is a privilege to work with artists like Doug, who responded to Donum’s landscape in every detail and created an experience that draws our attention to the elements of the environment that animate both wine and art. I know we will spend many a day listening to the hypnotic soundtrack Doug has composed in collaboration with nature. We welcome everyone to come experience Sonic Mountain (Sonoma), our wines and the rest of the collection.
Donum was established in 2001 and, since 2014, has presented large-scale sculptures throughout its 200-acre vineyard, a pastoral landscape interspersed with 150-year- old olive trees, beehives and an organic farm. In 2018, the sculpture collection officially launched with about 40 major works by artists from across the globe, including Ai Weiwei, Yayoi Kusama, Louise Bourgeois, Keith Haring, Zhan Wang, Elmgreen & Dragset, Yue Minjun, Jaume Plensa, Subodh Gupta, Danh Vo, Richard Hudson and Tracey Emin, among others. Sonic Mountain (Sonoma) marks the continued growth of the collection, which was further augmented earlier this year with the commissioning of Subodh Gupta’s People Tree, a striking 10-meter high stainless-steel banyan tree with utensils as leaves, following its unital display at La Monnaie de Paris.
Donum’s sculpture collection creates an open-air encounter with global art of diverse origins and practices; yet the works are united in their seamless integration into the rolling vineyards with views to the Sonoma mountains and San Francisco Bay. Visitors who come to taste Donum’s exceptional wines in this intimate, bucolic setting can heighten their sensory experiences by walking through the extensive grounds to see the evolving collection of art, which will continue to grow and develop over the years.
In October 2019, Donum will publish its collection catalogue, which will include a contributing essay from Clare Lilley, director of programme, Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Lilley shared: The conviviality and sharing inherent in wine and food is echoed in the sculptures that help to define and articulate Donum. The quality and global reach of the collection as well as the careful placement of the sculptures throughout the landscape make Donum an exceptional sensory and intellectual experience.
To inaugurate the commission, multimedia artist Hisham Akira Bharoocha created a musical composition using the sculpture as its only sound source entitled 20 Percussionists for Sonic Mountain.
Beginning this fall, Donum will host a program of quarterly public art events involving the artists represented in the collection.
