SAN DIEGO, CA.- The San Diego Museum of Art announces the opening of The Art of Music, on view from September 26, 2015 through February 7, 2016. The multi-faceted and culturally diverse exhibition has been planned in celebration of the Balboa Park Centennial and is themed in relation to the musical performances that were held nearly every day during the 1915 Panama–California Exposition.
Combining works from the Museum’s Permanent Collection with loans from major museums and private collections, The Art of Music offers visitors the rare opportunity to see a variety of works exploring the intersection of music and art by iconic artists, including Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Arnold Böcklin, Rufino Tamayo, Chuck Close, William Hogarth, Henri Matisse, Utagawa Hiroshige, Christian Marclay, Oskar Finschinger and more. The exhibition is the largest in the Museum’s recent history, with more than 200 paintings, sculptures, and photographs, alongside contemporary video, installation and sound art, and musical instruments from around the world.
Comprising three thematic sections, The Art of Music first examines the motif of the musician and the symbolic nature of this figure in works as diverse as Greek terracotta figurines, ancient Chinese metalwork, and Western portraits of hallmark musicians. The second theme considers the social function of music and its public and private rituals. This spans depictions of musical performances at the court and in the theater, designs for opera and ballet, and works portraying musical scenes of everyday life, including examples from the Museum’s world-renowned Edwin Binney 3rd Collection of Indian paintings, as well as stage costumes designed by Natalia Goncharova. The third theme explores abstract representations of the sounds of music by artists such as Marsden Hartley and San Diego’s own John Baldessari.
“The Art of Music frames our serious exploration of the relationship between art and music, and the varied forms in which visual artists have taken inspiration from music and musicians,” said Roxana Velásquez, Maruja Baldwin Executive Director of The San Diego Museum of Art. “Whether you’re an art or music aficionado, The Art of Music offers something for everyone, and we hope visitors will enjoy the sound sensory experience.”
The exhibition also presents impressive displays of musical artifacts and instruments throughout history. This includes the original manuscript from Ludwig Van Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9 (1826) on loan from the Juilliard Manuscript Collection, as well as a Baroque Italian harpsichord (1725), and various African instruments from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and Angola, to name a few.
This landmark exhibition was selected by an international team of curators consisting of experts in art and music history. The committee is led by The San Diego Museum of Art’s Sandra Benito, former Deputy Director for Education and Public Engagement, and Anita Feldman, Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs, working with the Museum’s curators specializing in European, Modern and South Asian and Islamic art, as well as Vincent Poussou, Director of Digital Media and Audiences at the Grand Palais for the Réunion des Musées Nationaux, and Eric de Visscher, Director of the Musée de la Musique, Paris.
A catalogue, published in conjunction with Yale University Press, accompanies this exhibition and features new scholarship and essays from an international array of contributors, including art historian Simon Shaw-Miller and musicologist Richard Leppert.
Consisting of works building on the vast Permanent Collection at The San Diego Museum of Art, the exhibition also includes significant loans from major institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
