Seeing Sound

Seeing Sound is an expansive exhibition that explores the current trajectory of sound as a dynamic branch of contemporary art practice, curated by Barbara London. The exhibition features seven artists based around the world—Seth Cluett, Juan Cortés, Auriea Harvey, bani haykal, Yuko Mohri, Aura Satz, and Samson Young. For Seeing Sound, the artworks take shape as kinetic sculpture, audio-video installation, and visitor-responsive technologies. With headphones notably absent, the exhibition consists of complex environmental sonic experiences, where each artwork simultaneously allows for multiple modes of communal listening.

Barbara London is a New York-based curator and writer who founded the video-media exhibition and collection programs at The Museum of Modern Art, where she worked between 1973 and 2013. Her current projects include the book Video/Art: The First Fifty Years (Phaidon), the podcast series Barbara London Calling, and the exhibition Seeing Sound (Independent Curators International).

London organized one-person shows with such media mavericks as Laurie Anderson, Peter Campus, Teiji Furuhashi, Gary Hill, Joan Jonas, Shigeko Kubota, Nam June Paik, Song Dong, Steina Vasulka, Bill Viola, and Zhang Peili. Her thematic exhibitions at MoMA included Soundings: A Contemporary Score (2013); Looking at Music (2009); Video Spaces (1995); Music Video: the Industry and Its Fringes (1985); and Video from Tokyo to Fukui and Kyoto (1979). She was the first to integrate the Internet as part of curatorial practice, with Stir-fry (1994); Internyet (1998); and dot. jp (1999).  

London’s writing has appeared in numerous catalogs and publications, including Artforum, Yishu, Leonardo, Art Asia Pacific, Art in America, and Modern Painter.

London teaches in the Sound Art Department, Columbia University, and previously taught in the Graduate Art Department, Yale, 2014–19. Her honors include: Getty Research Institute scholar, 2016; the Courage Award, Eyebeam, 2016; Gertrude Contemporary Residency, Melbourne, 2012; Dora Maar House Residency, Menerbes, 2010; a CEC Artslink award in Poland, 2003; a Japanese government Bunkacho Fellowship, 1992–93; and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, 1988–89.

Seeing Sound is a traveling exhibition curated by Barbara London, with the support of Research Assistant Kristen Clevenson and produced by Independent Curators International (ICI). This exhibition and tour are supported, in part, by Nokia Bell Labs Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) program and with the generous support of ICI’s Board of Trustees and International Forum. Crozier Fine Arts is the Preferred Art Logistics Partner. Support for the presentation at Haverford College is provided by The John B. Hurford ’60 Center for the Arts and Humanities in conjunction with Sonic Worlds, a year of programming exploring diverse sound, musical, and listening practices as they figure in our everyday lives and in various fields of study.

For more information, visit ICI’s website.

Gallery location: Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery, Haverford College, 370 Lancaster Avenue, Haverford, Pennsylvania 19041.
Gallery hours:  Monday–Friday: 11am–5pm, Wednesday: 11am–8pm, Saturday–Sunday: 12pm–5pm.

Contact: Matthew Seamus Callinan, mcallina [​at​] haverford.edu.