FROM HUNTINGTON LIBRARY, ART COLLECTIONS AND BOTANICAL GARDENS,

SAN MARINO, CA…

“Bird Calls” Audio Artwork Installed at The Huntington
Beginning Feb. 8th, 2008

“Bird Calls,” an audio artwork by conceptual artist Louise Lawler, will be installed at the Huntington beginning Feb. 8.

The 1972 work transforms the names of famous male artists into a bird song, parroting names such as Jasper, Donald, Robert, Frank and Andy in an inspired mockery of conditions of privilege and recognition given to male artists at that time.

The sound installation, audible in two locations on the Huntington’s grounds, is intended to entice the curious and provide a unique interactive experience by challenging listeners to examine the meaning of art as it is presented in an atypical context.

“Bird Calls” is part of Women in the City, a multi-venue, contemporary public art initiative featuring works by Louise Lawler, Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer, and Cindy Sherman, and curated by Emi Fontana for West of Rome, staged in unpredictable venues and locations throughout Los Angeles including The Standard Downtown, Hollywood & Highland Center, billboards on Sunset Boulevard, and wild postings from Venice Beach to Pasadena.

More about Women in the City

About the artist
Louise Lawler was born in Bronxville, New York, in 1947. Lawler’s most renowned photographic work questions how an artwork becomes historicized, by capturing the social framework that surrounds it. She photographs the works of other artists as they are displayed within private collections and museums, re-presenting the work through photography in a way that exposes the institutional context that gives the artwork its value. more…