Forty speakers standing in an oval, each one carrying a single recorded voice, will fill a gallery at the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill starting November 22. Janet Cardiff's The Forty Part Motet, one of the most widely exhibited sound installations of the past quarter century, is coming to the East End for the first time, and it will stay through February 14, 2027.

The Parrish organized the show with The FLAG Art Foundation. It is the first exhibition of Cardiff's work on the East End of Long Island.

What the installation is

Cardiff made the piece in 2001 by reworking Spem in Alium, a motet the English composer Thomas Tallis wrote in the 16th century for forty separate vocal parts. She recorded 59 singers individually and assigned each part its own speaker. The speakers are grouped into eight choirs of five voices, with children singing the soprano parts and adult men singing the rest, and the eight groups are arranged in an oval around the room.

That arrangement is the point of the work. Standing in the middle, a visitor hears the motet the way an audience would. Walking up to any single speaker, a visitor hears one singer's line on its own, the way that performer heard it while standing inside the choir. Visitors are free to move from speaker to speaker for as long as they like.

The original production was made by Field Art Projects with the Arts Council of England, the Salisbury Festival, BALTIC Gateshead, The New Art Gallery Walsall and the NOW Festival in Nottingham. The Parrish presentation is curated by Scout Hutchinson and Jonathan Rider, with Caroline Cassidy.

Also on view in Water Mill this season

The motet arrives alongside several shows already up at the museum, so a single visit covers a lot of ground.

  • Abstract Expressionism: The East End, 1940 to Today, through February 14, 2027. The group exhibition traces how the movement took hold among artists working on the East End and follows it into the present. It is part of the museum's USA250 series for the nation's 250th anniversary and was organized by associate curator Kaitlin Halloran.
  • FRESH PAINT: Chase Hall, through January 25, 2027, the eighth in the museum's FRESH PAINT series with The FLAG Art Foundation, showing a new painting by Chase Hall for the first time.
  • Robert Indiana's ONE Through ZERO (The Ten Numbers), installed in the south meadow through January 13, 2027.
  • Will Ryman's Shanghai 6, large painted flower sculptures from the artist's Rose series, in the south meadow through March 2028.

November dates at the museum

  • Saturday, November 7, 11 a.m.: a book launch and talk with Will Ryman, followed by a docent-led tour at 2 p.m.
  • Friday, November 20, 3 p.m.: a curator-led tour of the Abstract Expressionism exhibition.
  • Saturday, November 21, 3:30 to 5 p.m.: a members' opening for the Cardiff installation and for a new exhibition on the American Impressionists William Merritt Chase and Walter Granville-Smith, with a panel on the two painters at 4 p.m.
  • Sunday, November 22: The Forty Part Motet opens to the public.

Planning a visit

The Parrish Art Museum is at 279 Montauk Highway in Water Mill, in the Town of Southampton. The galleries are open Thursday through Monday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and closed Tuesday and Wednesday; the grounds, where the Indiana and Ryman sculptures stand, are open daily from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Adult admission is $20, and parking behind the building is free. The museum's phone number is 631-283-2118.

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