Listening on Display: Exhibiting Sounding Artworks, 1960s to the Present

Since the 1960s, sounding artworks regularly appear in exhibitions of contemporary art. However, scholars of art history, musicology, sound studies, and museum studies lament the experiential difficulties of this development. They describe how sounds challenge the sensory hierarchy of the museum, how they disrupt the venerable silence of the white cube, or how they drown in the overall noise level of the galleries.

This book examines the listening experiences of artists, visitors, curators, and technicians in more than twenty exhibitions that have taken place at contemporary art museums, alternative art spaces, and other venues in Germany and the US since the 1960s. Through archival research, visitor book analysis, interviews, and observations drawing on sensory ethnography, the book brings together their ideas and ideals about aesthetic ambitions, sensory abilities, cultural conventions, and technological standards. In doing so, this book lays the groundwork for rethinking sound in exhibition spaces.