“Sorrow found me when I was young…
Sorrow waited, sorrow won…
SORROW THEY PUT ME ON THE PILL…
IT’S IN MY HONEY IT’S IN MY MI–[voice breaking]…”
Want to hear that over and over and over and over again? For the artist’s piece A Lot of Sorrow at the MoMA PS1 WV Dome, Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson is having the very popular sad jams band The National perform their song Sorrow on a six-hour live loop. “By stretching a single pop song into a day-long tour de force the artist continues his explorations into the potential of repetitive performance to produce sculptural presence within sound.”
Why? Because The National speaks to Kjartansson’s themes of “romantic suffering and contemporary Weltschmerz” (you know [ˈvɛltʃmɛɐ̯ts] — “world-pain” and “world-weariness” in German). Perchance the National should take tips from Erik Satie. Hey, Erik Satie, how did you play that Vexations theme so many times? “In order to play the theme 840 times in succession, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, and in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities.” They’ll be alright.
Sunday, May 5, 2013. 12:00 PM to 6:00 PM.
