Janet Cardiff, Her Long Black Hair
Janet Cardiff: The Walk Book
http://www.tba21.org/exhibitions/0511/
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For Immediate Release Contact: Anne Wehr
(212) 980-4575
awehr@publicartfund.org
Public Art Fund presents
Janet Cardiff
Her Long Black Hair
A site-specific audio walk for Central Park
Back for Summer 2005!
June 16 – September 11, 2005
“Walking is very calming. One step after another,
one foot moving into the future and one in the past.
Did you ever think about that? Our bodies are caught
in the middle. The hard part is staying in the present.
Really being here.” — From Her Long Black Hair
Public Art Fund is pleased to announce the encore presentation—for summer 2005 only—of Her Long Black Hair, Janet Cardiff’s extraordinary, critically-acclaimed audio walk for Central Park. Originally presented in 2004, Her Long Black Hair guides listeners on a free, site-specific walk, weaving Central Park’s historic landmarks, from Balto to the Bandshell, into the fabric of its soundtrack of spoken words and sound effects. This 45-minute journey, which begins at Central Park South, transforms an everyday stroll in the park into an enthralling psychological and physical experience. As with the first presentation of the work in summer 2004, Her Long Black Hair is sponsored by Bloomberg.
Her Long Black Hair takes each listener on a winding, mysterious journey through Central Park’s 19th century
pathways, retracing the footsteps of an enigmatic dark-haired woman. Relayed in Janet Cardiff’s quasi-narrative style, Her Long Black Hair is a complex sensory investigation of location, time, sound, and physicality, interweaving stream-of-consciousness observations with fact and fiction, local history, opera and gospel music, and more. At once cinematic and non-linear, Her Long Black Hair uses binaural technology—a means of recording that achieves incredibly precise three dimensional sound—to create an experience of startling physical immediacy and complexity. As Cardiff’s soundtrack overlaps with the actual sounds surrounding the listener, past and present
intertwine to form a multilayered, open-ended reality.
The walk echoes the visual world as well, using photographs to reflect upon the relationship between images and notions of possession, loss, history, and beauty. Each person will receive an audio kit that contains a CD player with headphones as well as a packet of photographs. As Cardiff’s voice on the audio soundtrack guides listeners through the park, they are occasionally prompted to pull out and view one of the photographs. These images link the speaker and the listener within their shared physical surroundings of Central Park, shifting between the present, the recent past, and the more distant past.
Also, look for the forthcoming publication of The Walk Book, the definitive book of all of Cardiff’s signature audio walks, beginning with The Forest Walk (1991) and ending with Her Long Black Hair. The book is produced by Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary with Public Art Fund. With texts by Janet Cardiff and Mirjam Schaub, and contributions by Gary Garrels, Tom Eccles, Madeleine Grynsztejn, John Weber, and many other curators.
Janet Cardiff is perhaps best known for her audio walks, which she has made in London, Rome, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, St. Louis, and elsewhere. Her gallery installations—often made with George Bures Miller, Cardiff’s husband and artistic collaborator—use the narrative and technical language of film noir to create lush, suspenseful sound and video works. Her Long Black Hair received the International Art Critics Association’s 2004 award for “Best Show in an Alternative or Public Space.”
Janet Cardiff’s Her Long Black Hair is sponsored by Bloomberg with additional support from the James Family Foundation. Details and schedule for Her Long Black Hair
· Location: Headsets for Her Long Black Hair will be available at a kiosk at 6th Ave and Central Park South.
· This ongoing event is FREE
· Hours: Thursday – Sunday 10am to 3:30pm. The last headset return time is 5pm.
· Reservations: Reservations are only available for groups of 10 or more, who must call 212-980-3942 three days ahead of time. For all others, headset pick up is first come, first serve.
· Other information: Participants will be asked to leave a drivers license or credit card in exchange for the audio equipment and should allow at least 1 hour for Her Long Black Hair. The work’s running time is 45 minutes and then the audio kit must be returned to the kiosk at 59th Street and Sixth Avenue. A map with the return route will be included.
· Subways: N, R, Q, to 57th Street or N, R to Fifth Avenue; A, B, C, D, 1, 9 to Columbus Circle.
PUBLIC ART FUND is New York’s leading presenter of artists’ projects, new commissions, installations and exhibitions in public spaces. For over 25 years the Public Art Fund has been committed to working with emerging and established artists to produce innovative exhibitions of contemporary art throughout New York City. The Public Art Fund is a non-profit arts organization supported by generous gifts from individuals, foundations, and corporations, and with public funds from The New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.