“I was trying to make a visual and sonic poem, a poem with visual rhymes,” said Meredith Monk while revisiting her early performance, 16 Millimeter Earrings, first presented at the Judson Memorial Church in New York in 1966. In this interview with Siri Engberg (Senior Curator and Director of Exhibitions Management), Monk reflects on the work’s genesis as a performance, its transformation into an installation for its presentation in the 1998 Walker exhibition Art Performs Life, and its acquisition by the Walker in 2010.
Sacred Sounds: Penelope Freeh on Cellular Songs by Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble
"Don’t be fooled by the ethereal, they are grounded in their soft power." Dance artist Penelope Freeh reflects upon Cellular Songs by Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble, a work that Monk said she created "as an antidote to the values that are being propagated right now."
"I was trying to make a visual and sonic poem, a poem with visual rhymes," said Meredith Monk while revisiting her early performance 16 Millimeter Earrings, first presented at the Judson Memorial Church in New York City in 1966.
Repeat Cycles: Meredith Monk on Voice, #MeToo, and Recurring History
Born in the late years of the Second World War, Meredith Monk has seen it all—14 presidents; six major US wars; the birth of the modern Civil Rights, anti-war, and environmental movements; 9/11; Black Lives Matter; #MeToo; Donald Trump. Through it all, the multifaceted artist says she has been responding through her art to events in the world—but rarely through words. Here, as she returns to Minneapolis to perform in Cellular Songs, she discusses how she has engaged with a tumultuous world through her art.
Getting Down to the Bones: Meredith Monk and Deborah Jowitt in Conversation
What thread runs through Meredith Monk's works in film, music-theater, and dance over the past half century? "A sense of multidimensionality," she tells Deborah Jowitt. "And an attempt to get down to the bones of the form."
