PAMM Pérez Art Museum

Enrique Martinez Celaya

14 Oct 2011 - 01 Jan 2012

ENRIQUE MARTINEZ CELAYA
Schneebett (Snow-bed), 2003-4
Mixed media installation
Collection Miami Art Museum, promised gift of Dieter and Si Rosenkranz
14 October, 2011 - 1 January, 2012

Miami Art Museum will present Schneebett, a two-room installation inspired by Beethoven's convalescence and death in Vienna, Austria, in 1827, in the Anchor Gallery section of its Permanent Collection installation. The title, Schneebett ("Snow-bed"), is from a poem by Holocaust survivor Paul Celan, a meditation on death. In one room is a refrigerated bronze bed, its surface covered in a thick layer of frost. Behind it is a large tar-and-feather painting of a snowy wood. The entry to the room is blocked by a pile of logs and branches. On the other side of the blocked doorway is an antechamber, equipped with a solitary chair from which a viewer can peer into the inaccessible "bedroom." Nearby is an electric compressor, whose power keeps the bed refrigerated. Schneebett was first created for the Berliner Philharmonie in 2004, where it accompanied a program of Beethoven works. This is the first time it will be seen in the United States.
 

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