Josiah McElheny

Instrument Object, an exhibition by artist Josiah McElheny pays homage to visionary musicians and composers from across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In works of sculpture, painting, installation, and drawing, ranging from 2014 to 2026 and never before exhibited in New York City, McElheny translates the work of ten musical artists into visual form. The exhibition is an experiment in animating the inanimate through sound and movement: transforming The Kitchen’s loft space into an installation of image, sound, motion, and light, where works unpredictably activate, hum with the sound of motor gears, or encourage visitors to imagine an invisible music.

The exhibition draws on the legacies of pioneering voices with historical ties to The Kitchen such as Pauline Oliveros, Lucia Dlugoszewski, Julius Eastman, and John Cage, as well as other luminaries of the field including, Milford Graves, David Grubbs, Big Mama Thornton, Joe McPhee, Wes Montgomery, and Sun Ra. Across these works, McElheny creates visual allegories for fundamental investigations within experimental music: the mysterious nature of vibration, the relationship of rhythm to the circulatory system of the human body, and connections between freedom and unpredictability within improvisation.

The earliest works in the exhibition date from 2014, two of which feature rotating hand-blown glass as part of kinetic sculptures visualizing the overlapping roles of color, refraction, serendipity and chance. Later works, such as Cosmic Blue Trumpet (2018), made in honor of jazz instrumentalist Joe McPhee, derive from personal friendships with musicians. Central to the exhibition are three paintings from McElheny’s From Red Black to Blue Black series (2023). These panel paintings depict an “expanded” version of sunlight’s color spectrum and are embedded with black vibrating glass gongs that transmit musical sound signals specially composed by David Grubbs, becoming works of chromesthesia (the synesthesia of color and sound). Installed across The Kitchen's loft is Heartline (2023), an homage to percussionist and polymath Milford Graves. Heartline features a blood-colored, artery-like cable that passes through the space inside a series of glass tubes, transporting a synthesizer signal to a painted, hand-made “floor tom” drum, pulsing with a never repeating, heartbeat-like rhythm. This key work within the exhibition celebrates Graves’ research into the relationship between sound, melody, and the human heart.

The exhibition also highlights five recent works made within 2026, including Ladder Harp and Primordial Lift, which pay homage, respectively, to the instrument designs of composer Lucia Dlugoszewski and to radical concepts of vibration and “deep listening” described by musician and author Pauline Oliveros. Bench for Archival Listening (also 2026), a minimalist plywood furniture sculpture, allows the visitor to sit and listen closely—through blue plate glass “speakers”—to the recently rediscovered lost recording of Julius Eastman’s work Not Spiritual Beings, performed at the Kitchen in 1981. This mislabeled recording was discovered by Dustin Hurt, director of Bowerbird in Philadelphia, while searching for a recording of composer Lucia Dlugoszewski performing at The Kitchen. Bench for Archival Listening, demonstrates the function of institutional archives as more than retrospective, but also sites of recovery.

The exhibition is accompanied by a program of dialogues and performances that will take place both at The Kitchen and Giorno Poetry Systems across the arc of the exhibition. The schedule includes a special performance by composer and instrumentalist Zeena Parkins of After Fire Fragile Flight, a new work inspired by Lucia Dlugoszewski’s 1973 composition for chamber orchestra, during the exhibition’s opening September 10 at 7 PM. The next day, September 11 at 7pm, features a sunset duet between improvisor Wendy Eisenberg and composer and guitarist David Grubbs. On October 1, Giorno Poetry Systems and the Kitchen will co-host an experimental dialogue about the history of music within a larger cultural context, entitled Limb Independence, this evening will be introduced by McElheny and features Raven Chacon, Jennie C. Jones, George Lewis, and Fred Moten. The Kitchen will also organize a set of community programs during the run of the exhibition including family art-making workshops on September 19, September 26, and October 3 (at 11am and 12:30pm), October 3 a program featuring artist and musician Cecilia Lopez co-presented with Artists & Mothers; public walkthroughs with the artist, and a reading series that will be held on Wednesday evenings in October.

The culminating event of Instrument Object is a two-day symposium, Improvisation, Archive and Homage featuring musicians and composers on November 7 and 8 with MacArthur Fellows Claire Chase, Mary Halvorson, Ikue Mori, Tomeka Reid, Jason Moran, and Craig Taborn, moderated by music historian and gallerist, John Corbett. A closing reception for the exhibition, hosted by the MacArthur Foundation and honoring symposium participants, will be held in the evening on November 7. This program is supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, as part of Defying Boundaries: MacArthur Fellows at 45. For more information please visit: Defying Boundaries: MacArthur Fellows at 45.

Josiah McElheny: Instrument Object is organized by Robyn Farrell, Senior Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs with support from Fernanda Escalera Zambrano, Operations Manager, Angelique Rosales-Salgado, Assistant Curator. Production by David Riley, Production & Exhibitions Manager, and Tassja Walker, Production Supervisor.

The Kitchen thanks Gerry Eastman and Wise Music for their generous permission to feature Julius Eastman’s work Not Spiritual Beings in this exhibition.

BIO

Josiah McElheny (b. 1966) has exhibited widely, including solo shows at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA (2024); the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, CA (2019); Moody Center for the Arts, Rice University, Houston, TX (2018); MAK Österreichisches Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna, Austria (2016); Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH (2013), Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA (2012), Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, England (2011), Museo de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain (2009), Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden (2007), The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (2007), Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, Santiago de Compostela, Spain (2002), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA (2001), The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA (1999) and the Seattle Art Museum, WA (1995). His work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Museum of Fine Art, Boston, MA; Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden; Tate Modern, London, UK; and Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH, among others. McElheny lives and works in New York, New York.