Museum patrons create interactive sound environment

TEMPE, Ariz. – Sean Duffy’s newest installation, The Grove, seeks to gather people in a participatory and performative experience. The Groveconsists of multiple turntables, each linked to numerous speakers suspended from the ceiling. A selection of albums by instrumental and vocal performers at each turntable allows participants to interactively change the sound environment. With close to 400 speakers, the installation creates a canopy of sound from a collective-community orchestration of ever-evolving musical compositions.

Sean Duffy creates paintings, sculpture and installations that explore popular culture through the lens of art. He has used the graphics of early video games to evoke geometric abstraction; combined ‘mod’ style with modernist aesthetic in painting and design; explored concepts of appropriation and repetition in drawings of macramé and in his multi tone-armed turntables; and used office furniture and the language of minimalism to explore concepts of work and leisure in American society.

Duffy received his MFA from the University of California, Irvine, and has been the focus of several notable solo exhibitions including, most recently, Group Show (2006) at Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, where he has exhibited since 2001, and Group Show Part Two (2007) at Susanne Vielmetter Berlin Projects. Duffy’s work has been included in many notable group exhibitions in the past several years includingBlack Belt (2003) at the Studio Museum in Harlem; Remix/Experimenter (2003) at the Museum of Modern Art, San Salvador, El Salvador; 2004 California Biennial, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, California; and Lost in Music (2005) at Johnson Community College, Overland Park, Kansas. It will also be featured in the forthcoming SightRhythms: Sound and Light in Contemporary Art (2007) at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston.

This exhibition is co-organized by Julie Joyce, Director, Luckman Gallery at California State University, Los Angeles, and John Spiak, Curator, Arizona State University Art Museum. This project is made possible in part by Stinkweeds Music (Phoenix), Modified Arts (Phoenix), an Artists’ Resource for Completion grant from the Durfee Foundation (Los Angeles), and Friends of the ASU Art Museum.

Programs:
Target Family Fun Day!
Saturday, July 14, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.

Welcome Back Student Party and Reception for the artist
Tuesday, August 28, 6 – 8 p.m.

For more information contact John Spiak, Curator, ASU Art Museum at 480.965.0497 or jdspiak@mainex1.asu.edu
The ASU Art Museum is part of the Herberger College of the Arts and is located on the southeast corner of Mill Avenue and 10th Street in Tempe. Exhibition hours are 10 a.m. – 9 p.m., Tuesdays and 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday. Admission is free.  For more information, call 480.965.2787 or visit the museum online atasuartmuseum.asu.edu.

Media Contact:
John Spiak
ASU Art Museum curator
480.965.0497 
jdspiak@mainex1.asu.edu