Nasher Sculpture Center Announces Sightings: Anne Le Troter
In her first U.S. commission, French artist Anne Le Troter will consider the ethics of eugenics in a linguistic score and site-specific installation as part of The Nasher Sculpture Center’s “Sighting” series.
Le Troter’s work will be on view from Oct. 26 through Feb. 2, 2020.
Le Troter, born in Saint Etienne, France in 1985, lives and works in Paris. Her work explores the rhythms and physicality of language through sound. Her past works have been the subject of several solo exhibitions such as FMAC, Artgenève, Palais de Tokyo and more.
“I arrange ‘language blocks’ one after the other, reworking them, using the constraints of each phrase: duration, tone, and breathing,” she said.
Troter begins with spoken language from found recordings and then she edits and reconstructs it as a linguistic score. At times she combines a multitude of voices speaking in conversation, unison, or discord. She then builds installations for her audio pieces that function as spaces to listen. These installations include commonplace furniture that is usually found in traditional places –waiting rooms, bus stations, and office cubicles. It falls somewhere between décor and design.
Le Troter has developed a sound piece that is about 13 minutes. It is made up of hundreds of audio samples collected from a U.S.-based cryobank that collects and stores donated sperm for the Nasher commission. In the recordings, donors answer questions about family, life, and their visions for their futures while employees provide their impression of genetic qualities, hobbies, values, and physical traits. The sample eventually forms a portrait of prospective donors.
Troter was inspired by novels such as H.G. Wells’s The Island of Doctor Moreau and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Her sound installation considers the ethics of eugenics and the role of language in the search for an ideal.
This will be Le Troter’s first work in the English language.
The Nasher Sculpture Center is located in the Dallas Arts District and features more than 300 masterpieces. They are open Tuesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and the first Saturday each month from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
