Multi-Media Arts Events

Lately I've been listening to a lot of music by two different bands; Wilco and Animal Collective and earlier this year, something cool happened, both bands held multi-media events at contemporary art museums.

Animal Collective collaborated with the film-maker Danny Perez to present "Transverse Temporal Gyrus" on March 4th 2010 in the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Gyrus was a site specific piece of performance art that the Guggenheim says "transformed the museum’s rotunda into a kinetic, psychedelic environment."

Animal Collective and Perez had previously teamed up on ODDSAC, an experimental film that premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival. (its such a cool film)



To the left are some photos from the Guggenheim's Flickr and here's a video of the event
Animal Collective at the Guggenheim

This past August, Wilco teamed up with a bunch of bands to put on the Wilco Solid Sound Festival at MASS MoCA. MoCA is a contemporary art museum housed in a renovated 19th century factory in the town of  North Adams, Massachusetts.

But it wasn't just another music festival that happened to take place at a museum, the Solid Sound Festival featured interactive art exhibits from Wilco members Glenn Kotche and Nels Cline as well as other artists

The Solid Sound Festival used a dedicated website to market the event as well as Facebook to hold a photo contest and a scavenger hunt at MASS MoCA using bar codes and smart phones. Solid Sound Facebook Page  http://solidsoundfestival.com/ 


Both events seem like they would have been wonderful to attend and it seems that events like this are a great way for a museum to get outside of the traditional museum experience while expanding the audience and picking up buzz by association with such huge followings.

Do you think more museums should host events like this? What are some other ways to cross pollinate in the arts?

Poster for the Wilco Solid Sound Festival