Anri Sala’s Compositions in Time

For more than two decades, Anri Sala has been juxtaposing elements of past and present, overlapping narrative, sound and movement to create films and installations that invite the viewer into a unique world of cultural observation. Inside his exhibition at Bourse de Commerce - Pinault Collection in Paris, we sat down with the artist to talk about his exhibition ‘Time No Longer.’
Sala’s latest work is presented in the iconic rotunda at the center of museum and is the first the artist has produced entirely in CGI. In ‘Time No Longer,’ a 24-meter LED screen shows a turntable floating in zero gravity within the International Space Station. The vinyl playing is an arrangement of Olivier Messian’s ‘Quartet for the End of Time’ (1941), a famous piece composed while he was prisoner of war in Germany. Sala’s work is inspired by Ronald McNair, the African-American astronaut and saxophonist who intended to record the first musical performance in space. Unfortunately this sonic quest was never realized as McNair was aboard the fatal Space Shuttle Challenger that crashed soon after launch. ‘I was interested to find what could have been, what would be the sound of this intention. And this is what brought me back to the history of Messiaen and to the history of the Quartet For the End of Times, and particularly the piece called the Abyss of the Birds, which is a solo for a clarinet, but which in ‘Time No Longer’ is represented as a combination between a clarinet and the saxophone.’
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Hauser & Wirth is an international contemporary and modern art gallery with spaces in Zurich, London, Somerset, New York, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Gstaad, St. Moritz, Monaco and Menorca.
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