Douglas Gordon & Hélène Grimaud, tears become… streams become… , was showing at the Park Avenue Armory in New York, between Dec 9, 2014 and Jan 4, 2015.
Douglas Gordon’s installation flooded the expansive 55,000 square feet Armory’s drill hall with 122,000 gallons of water to create a reflective environment, only to reach new dimensions when Hélène Grimaud performed her repertoire.
“How many times have you cried in your life? How much liquid have you given to the world? Every day, every week, every month… a field of water. I don’t think that’s tragic, it’s really celebratory, actually. We are trying to encourage people to realize that the moment they have right in front of their eyes will never, ever, be the same again.” - Douglas Gordon.
When we arrived, to our surprise, the loch was dry. We sat in silence. Very slowly water raised from underneath through the floor joins until it formed a perfectly still mirror. We were suspended in-between two worlds: the impressive vaulted ceiling above and its reflected counterpart at our feet. The whole exercise took about 30 minutes. Time had slowed down, allowing for reflection.
Lights went off. In complete darkness we could only hear faint sounds of feet splashing in the vast emptiness, as someone was walking in the water.
One spot light revealed an Hélène Grimaud casually dressed in Agnès B. white sportswear with matching wellies, sitting at one of the two Steinway pianos floating in the middle of the artificially created lake. The elaborate water-themed music repertoire started, and the one hour long performance will end with the much meaningful Debussy, La cathédrale engloutie (“The Sunken Cathedral”).
At first, the imposed vignette on Hélène had a strange result: by leaving the rest of the space in darkness, the lack of visual physicality was creating a certain unease, almost a vertigo, an emptiness that could be felt in all directions. In a space of this size, the mind wants to explore, the eyes want to wander… This visceral need was fulfilled once the lighting started to change, at almost imperceptible slow speed, to highlight the surrounding architecture and the intricate structural lace supporting the dome. Light re-grounded the whole scene, the same way it dissolved it moments before.
Above: photomontage from original photo by James Ewing. Lighting designer Brian Scott.
