The Pergamon Museum in Berlin is coming to life with a light and sound installation by Liam Gillick.
Liam Gillick is a British artist working out of New York City, whose multimedia installations center around examining social systems and the modes of production. He’s been invited to the Pergamon Museum to help it come to life.
Projection mapping will bring an ancient Turkish statue of Hadad, a weather god, to life with glowing blue eyes and a deep orange light, as well as deep angry growls. The statue, which was carved in the 8th century, is over 11 feet tall and solid basalt. It is one of the first hings visitors see as they step into the galleries.
Gillick’s touch is everywhere, with his new show Filtered Time taking place through the whole museum.
“Many times when we come to these museums, the objects, unfortunately, become relics,” though they once existed in cities as living space, on avenues where people used them in different ways, walked through them or sat on them, museum director Sam Bardaouil said.
“So the sound, in a sense, is a way of bringing back some of the commotion, some of the energy, some of the life in which these objects existed,” he added.
The show opened Tuesday, and will run until October, just shortly before the museum intends to close for a four-year renovation period. Parts of the museum, such as the iconic Ishtar Gate, won’t re-open to the public until at least 2037. But for now, the blue-tiled Ishtar gate stands open for all, and Gillick’s work gives it new life, with a pulsing blue light and the recordings of a busy, human space. He used the sounds of shipping and construction in Syria and Iraq.
“But it’s slowed down. It’s made unclear. It’s sort of rendered into this soundscape, which becomes more emotional, suggestive of movement of machinery, of construction,” Gillick explained.
“But it could also be the sounds of an ancient God moaning and murmuring,” he added.
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