Eine Kleine Nachtmusik

Video projectors, DVD player, video monitors
Variable dimensions
2001

Richard Humann • Eine Kleine Nachtmusik • Mixed media • Variable dimensions • 2001

Richard Humann was born and raised in a town 12 miles north of Nyack, New York, the hometown of Edward Hopper. Although Hopper lived from 1882 – 1967, for the exhibition Going Home at Hopper House, which is now an art exhibition and museum space in the childhood home of Edward Hopper, Richard created the site-specific installation Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

The inspiration for the work is of the sounds that Edward Hopper would have heard as a child growing-up in Nyack in the late 19th century. They would be similar, if not the same sounds that Richard Humann heard nearly one hundred years later; boats going up and down the Hudson River, trains passing by on the railroad tracks that hug the coastline, and even the sounds of the crickets that permeate the air at the end of summer and early autumn. It is through these familiar sounds that a perceived connection was made between Richard Humann and Edward Hopper.

The installation was installed in the entire converted living room space of Hopper House. A video of an orchestra performing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (Serenade No. 13 for strings in G major) was silently projected into the covered-over fireplace, but instead of the famous Mozart serenade being heard, miniature monitors were set-up that projected the sounds of crickets throughout the darkened room.

Photo credit: Richard Humann Studio