Gallery Sound

Reviews / Votes

Gallery Sound underlines a shared history of experimental music and visual arts as well as the role of both in generating cross-genre interventions via the gallery space. Kelly's critical reading is timely, especially in relation to current debates and practices in sound art. * Journal of Sonic Studies * [A] short but wonderfully rich book ... For anyone interested in the often fractious relationship between art institutions and sound, this book is pretty much essential reading. * The Wire * [A] new remarkable book. * Neural * Caleb Kelly's Gallery Sound challenges the term 'sound art' by turning an ear toward the gallery itself as a site for (and of) sonic investigation. Kelly reminds us that galleries are rich with sound and that a full experiential encounter with artworks demands listening alongside looking. Lucidly written, Gallery Sound considers artworks that treat the sound of the gallery as a fundamental condition, as a container for noise, and as a site where music becomes a medium to be explored and exhibited. * Brian Kane, Associate Professor of Music, Yale University, USA * Gallery Sound responds to keen growing interest in sound in contemporary art. It inverts focus on sound art by showing how audio has been a latent force in the art gallery for at least half a century, and that the gallery can indeed be musical. Sound for Caleb Kelly is not simply a material or a medium but a phenomenon. The myth of the white cube space parallels the impossibility of silence as Kelly moves with alacrity through John Cage and Janet Cardiff, from Akio Suzuki via Bruce Nauman to Marina Rosenfeld. * Atau Tanaka, Professor of Media Computing, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK * Caleb Kelly has written a richly rewarding critical genealogy of sound in the art gallery. His book is at once authoritative and invigorating in its range and the buzzing excitement of its analyses. With Gallery Sound, he has secured his place as one of the leading commentators on the sonic arts. * Steven Connor, Grace 2 Professor of English, University of Cambridge, UK * Rich with details and examples of artists who are using contemporary galleries for sound-based art, even music making/performance ... Gallery Sound provides an engaging account of how contemporary artists have mined the sonic qualities of contemporary galleries for creative output and the production of new forms of contemporary art. * Leonardo Music Journal *