Robert Morrison

Robert Morrison’s work is an excellent resource for looking at the ability to hone skills in two different distinct areas and then pull it together in a beautiful way. His works look very minimal at a glance but there are a lot of layers conceptually. Both working sculpturally with objects and using sound as an added layer to his work, I am looking at Morrison to see how he introduces sound into his work.

A brilliant piece to me is a performance/sound piece that he did in Piper’s Opera House in nearby Virginia City. Four tape recorders sitting 15 or so feet apart from each other were arranged on the floor to form a square. Morrison threaded blank recording tape in a loop [through the machines, turned on both the microphones and speakers, and hit the start buttons. Critic William L. Fox, commenting on the sounds that emitted from the tape dragging up debris from the floor and playing through the recorders comments, “either they or the ears of the audience would have burst hadn’t Morrison switched off the machines”. I think that this is the strong point of the piece; the sounds that were emitted were simply a result of the machines and the reaction to their manipulation by the hand of the artist. No matter the result of the sound emitted from the players the tension that was created during the showing of this piece is said to be what inhabited Morrison’s work for years to come.

M. Hasard, Dressed to the Nines, 1992, is for me one of Morrison’s most successful pieces. I appreciate the use of traditional materials combined with the element of sound to create a voice for the piece. The piece consists of silhouettes of homburg hats cut out of steel and wires hidden beneath the steal shelves pick up cadences of sound every minute or so. It seems to me that Morrison’s use of sound is very reactant to the raw-ness of sound, the un noticed sounds that we choose to tune out or ignore on a daily bases amplified and placed within the context of an art piece that beckons you to have a conversation with it. This is quite an accomplishment and an inspiring one at that. Morrison is great example amongst many that fuels my ideas to incorporate sound into my work.

Fox, William L. "Anxious Austerity." Sculpture Mar. 2005: 20-21. Print.

Harper, Glenn, and Twylene Moyer. A Sculpture Reader: Contemporary Sculpture since 1980. Hamilton, NJ: ISC, 2006. Print.