If Manus x Machina was a diaphanous delight, An Occupation of Loss, Shohei Shigematsu’s latest design for an artistic installation, represents the extreme opposite end of the spectrum. Somber and heavy in a pitch-black space, the monumental sculpture is a collaboration with artist Taryn Simon. Best known for her photographic work, Simon here considers the anatomy of grief in her first ever directed performance.
Inside the vast Wade Thompson Drill Hall at New York City’s Park Avenue Armory, 11 self-supporting concrete towers, each 45 feet tall, are arranged in an ellipse. Resembling an organ, each pipe is intended to produce its own distinct sound as a total of 30 or so professional mourners seated within them let out their wails, laments, and songs. Shigematsu and his team at OMA New York considered other materials, but decided early on that concrete was most appropriate for its acoustic properties and its monolithic nature. In fact, the entire installation weighs 165,000 pounds and is raised 9 inches off the ground on a concrete plinth to distribute the structural load of the pipes.
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