Yellow Sound

Igor Kopystiansky, Svetlana Kopystiansky, Yellow Sound, 2005, single-channel video, black and white, silent; 04:33 minutes, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of an anonymous donor, 2009.43, © 2005, Kopystianksy
Igor Kopystiansky, Svetlana Kopystiansky, Yellow Sound, 2005, single-channel video, black and white, silent; 04:33 minutes, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of an anonymous donor, 2009.43, © 2005, Kopystianksy

Artwork Details

Title
Yellow Sound
Date
2005
Location
Not on view
Copyright
© 2005, Kopystianksy
Credit Line
Gift of an anonymous donor
Mediums
Mediums Description
single-channel video, black and white, silent; 04:33 minutes
Classifications
Object Number
2009.43

Artwork Description

Svetlana and Igor Kopystiansky titled this work after Wassily Kandinsky’s theater production of the same name, linking it to a larger history of experimental art forms and invoking the significance of musical performance to the visual arts. The running time of four minutes and thirty-three seconds references the radical composition 4’33” (1952), in which the avant-garde composer John Cage approached a piano, lifted the lid, and sat motionless in silence for the full duration, allowing ambient sounds in the performance hall to determine the listening experience. Here, Yellow Sound displays found film of a stylus silently playing a record on a turntable. Its rotation is almost imperceptible. The only instance of change is the intermittent appearance and disappearance of imperfections layered on the surface of the original film. Extending Cage’s provocative suggestion, chance is visually rendered here through light and dust.


Watch This!: Revelations in Media Art, 2015

Works by this artist (6 items)

Barbara Carrasco, Messages to the Public: Pesticides! (Presented by Public Art Fund, July 1, 1989-July 31, 1989 on Times Square Spectacolor board, New York City), 1989, analog video transferred to digital video; 00:48 minutes, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist, 2020.31, © 1989, Barbara Carrasco
Messages to the Public: Pesticides! (Presented by Public…
Date1989
analog video transferred to digital video; 00:48 minutes
Not on view
Barbara Carrasco, Dolores, 1999, screenprint on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Frank K. Ribelin Endowment, 2020.22.7, © 1999, Barbara Carrasco
Dolores
Date1999
screenprint on paper
Not on view
Barbara Carrasco, Antonia, 2005, screenprint on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Drs. Harriett and Ricardo Romo, 2019.50.1
Antonia
Date2005
screenprint on paper
Not on view

Exhibitions

Media - 2010.5 - SAAM-2010.5_1 - 73850
Watch This! New Directions in the Art of the Moving Image (1.0)
December 10, 2010March 2, 2012
Watch This! New Directions in the Art of the Moving Image is a series of rotating exhibitions drawn from SAAM’s permanent collection.

More Artworks from the Collection

My Body Sees You
Date1992
single-channel video, color sound; 05:58 minutes
Not on view
Head of a Misanthropic Man
Date1976-1978
analog video transferred to digital video, color, silent; looped
Not on view
Charlemagne Palestine, Running Outburst, 1975, 5:56 minutes, black & white, sound, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase made possible by the Ford Motor Company, 2008.21.6, © 1975, Charlemagne Palestine. Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix, NY
Running Outburst
Date1975
5:56 minutes, black & white, sound
Not on view
Bill Viola, Silent Life from The Reflecting Pool- Collected Work 1977-80, 1979, 13:14 minutes, color, sound, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase made possible by the Ford Motor Company, 2008.21.16.3, © 1979 Bill Viola. Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix, NY
Silent Life from The Reflecting Pool- Collected Work 1977 – 80
Date1979
13:14 minutes, color, sound
Not on view