Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture | 2014 – 2016

Janet Cardiff’s The Forty Part Motet

Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture

Janet Cardiff’s The Forty Part Motet

Dates

2014 – 2016

Location

San Francisco

What we did

Plan

Produce

Engage

As Producer/Project Director, ArtRise Projects Principal Marnie Burke de Guzman initiated plans to present the acclaimed media artist Janet Cardiff’s immersive and moving sound installation The Forty Part Motet in its California debut (November 14, 2015 – January 18, 2016) through a collaborative partnership between Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture (FMCAC) and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). The Forty Part Motet was Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture’s inaugural presentation in Gallery 308, a renovated historic space with sweeping views of San Francisco Bay, and SFMOMA’s final On the Go program before the museum’s new building opened in May 2016.

A spatial reworking of sixteenth-century English composer Thomas Tallis’s transcendent Spem in alium, The Forty Part Motet is widely considered one of Janet Cardiff’s most important pieces. Born in 1957 in the Canadian town of Brussels, Ontario, Janet Cardiff has made sound the chief focus of her practice, often layering video and installation elements in multimedia works that explore themes of desire, intimacy, loss, and memory. She currently lives in rural British Columbia, and works in collaboration with her husband and partner, George Bures Miller. Cardiff originally studied photography and print-making before experimenting with sound and moving image, and first gained distinction in the art world in the mid-1990s for her site-specific audio walks. Since then, she and Bures Miller have been internationally recognized for their immersive media works which have been exhibited around the globe.

The Forty Part Motet by Janet Cardiff was co-presented by Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Generous support was provided by Linda and Jon Gruber and Roselyne Chroman Swig. Kind loan support was provided by the Kramlich Collection and Tate, through the Tate Americas Foundation.