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

Listening on Display

$120.00
Sale price  $120.00 Regular price 
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Listening on Display: Exhibiting Sounding Artworks, 1960s to the Present

Listening on Display

$120.00
Sale price  $120.00 Regular price 
Unit price $120.00 each

Listening on Display provides an empirical investigation of the historically, culturally, and socially contingent ways in which artists, curators, and visitors relate to sounds in contemporary art exhibitions.

Sounding artworks have appeared regularly in contemporary art exhibitions since the 1960s,
yet scholars of art history, musicology, sound studies, and museum studies have long noted
the experiential difficulties this development poses. 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 ambient noise of galleries.

This book explores 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 United States since the 1960s.
Through archival research, visitor book analysis, interviews, and observations drawing on
sensory ethnography, Semmerling 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.

Book Details

ISBN
9798765136232
Binding
Hardcover
Authors
Linnea Semmerling
Publisher
Bloomsbury Academic
Published Date
February 5, 2026
Language
English
Pages
232
Physical Info
0.56 in H x 9 in L x 6 in W (1.05 lb)

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