This video was produced for MoMA’s ninth installment of their always interesting Performance Exhibition Series, which features Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla, more commonly referred to as Allora & Calzadilla, and the staging of their haunting performance “Stop, Repair, Prepare: Variations on Ode to Joy for a Prepared Piano” (2008).
For the piece, the artists carved a hole in the center of a grand piano and arrange for pianist to play the Fourth Movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, usually referred to as “Ode to Joy” while wandering the gallery.
Since life often imitates art, I’m personally waiting till some busker attempts to pull this off in one of New York’s many public spaces … ahem, I suggest Union Square.
The duo will be representing the United States during the next Venice Biennale in 2011.
