On display at the Cleveland Museum of Art is a medieval Belgian altarpiece, a multi-paneled painting featuring detailed depictions of the suffering and death of Jesus Christ, which draws the eyes of astute museum visitors. They pause to look closely at each panel of “Altarpiece with The Passion of Christ,” admiring the striking shades of deep crimson, ocher, and gold leaf. 

When Catherine Girardeau approaches this piece of art, however, she’s not focusing on its colors or composition. Instead, she’s thinking about its sound. 

Girardeau made an audio guide for the Cleveland Museum of Art in 2012; her production company, Earprint, creates experiential design installations for museums. Considering the 500-year-old altarpiece, Girardeau thought about the aural soundscape of the place where it would have originally hung. She imagined a Gothic church in the Rhine Valley and wondered, “Would there have been music? Maybe monks were singing or chanting. You might have the flickering sound of candles.” 

In a traditional art museum, visuals are king, and most collections are curated for observation by sight. What, then, can sound design contribute to these institutions? For audio producers like Girardeau, the work begins by asking the right questions. 

Tuning in for tutelage

Audio can provide art museums an additional experiential layer, rich with aural textures. It can also provide an educational layer. Girardeau believes audio pairs especially well with visual art when it provides context, narrative, and atmosphere. “Some works of art don’t have an obvious narrative,” she said, especially more abstract pieces or those by lesser-known artists. “There are curators and visitor services experts who can be interviewed to talk about different aspects of that work.” 

Arlette Hernandez, who produces audio guides and other sound-forward projects at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, believes in the effectiveness of finding the right voices to consult. Part of her work involves creating what she calls “stops” — places to pause and tune in to audio content — for which she weaves together interviews with curators, artists, and other experts. “To actually be able to hear the texture of their voices, to hear where they put their pauses, to hear when their voices go up and where they go down: the things that really bring a story to life also bring that artwork to life,” said Hernandez.

For a recent exhibition, Hernandez interviewed a thanatologist (a scholar of death, dying, and grief) about how art can help us process grief. Moments from that interview became audio stops around MoMA, adding context to artwork that portrayed or was inspired by death and loss. The recorded conversation also formed the basis of an episode of the museum’s podcast. 

Hernandez takes care to incorporate unexpected voices into the work she produces — she’ll sometimes interview children, for example — in the hopes of dismantling the art world’s intimidating aura. “You don’t have to be a quote-unquote expert to respond to art,” she said. “Anyone can make a connection to a work of art.”

These connections are why people come to see art in the first place, Hernandez has learned: “Not just because it’s intriguing or beautiful or perplexing, but because it was made by a person. You’re connecting with that person.” Audio, as Hernandez has found, is an excellent vehicle for deepening those connections.

All for art, art for all

Audio components can also do heavy lifting for art museums when it comes to accessibility for blind and low vision visitors. “Why should they be excluded?” asked Girardeau. “Why shouldn’t you go to an art museum if you can’t see? You can experience a lot by just being in the space.”

Case in point: the Guggenheim, one of the most architecturally famous art museums in the world. In 2021, in an effort to make the museum accessible to all, its curators sought to capture their famed building in a way that blind and low vision visitors could appreciate. To do so, they turned to Sound Made Public, the audio production shop run by Tania Ketenjian and Philip Wood.

“Architecture is predominantly fed to us through the image,” Wood said. “And yet, the thing that lasts for us often, with space and with architecture, is the feeling it gives us when we move into it.” Creating that feeling meant going beyond the limitations of sight.

Ketenjian knew from the beginning that she didn’t want to simply create a standard museum audio guide. “The audio tour is just ripe for rebirth,” she said. 

The team scoured the building with microphones to capture ambient clips. Wood said he was intent on “discovering the atmospheric experience of being there” by finding the sound of the building’s “surfaces and their densities” and the “volumetric feel of space.” Edited together and paired with narration, the resulting composition is a multi-layered auditory depiction of the museum. The project was a reminder for Wood of what audio can capture. “You couldn’t have done that in any other medium,” he said.

Some audio formats for vision-impaired communities are more formulaic. Visual description, for example, is the methodology of translating visual art into words to be recorded as narration for blind and low vision visitors. Hernandez is meticulous when crafting this content for MoMA. She says it can be challenging to strike a balance between wanting to convey the emotional and intangible feelings that a piece of art can evoke and needing to keep the language neutral and objective so listeners can form their own opinions. The structured style can be dry by design. 

Leaving room for individual interpretation is a key consideration for audio producers doing this kind of work in art museums. So much about art is deeply personal; a Mondrian that looks like a meaningless arrangement of lines to one person might bring another to tears. When adding layers of audio to certain pieces, there’s a risk of overly influencing how a visitor responds to something or skewing the artist’s original intent. 

There are thoughtful ways of ensuring that audio components don’t overstep. “For one thing, I think that any kind of additional interpretation on top of the artwork itself should be opt-in,” said Girardeau. Hernandez agreed: “That allows people to create their own experiences. For those who do opt in, we’re really quite rigorous about not making any definitive statements like, ‘This is what this work means.’”

Whether through comprehensive listening guides, or specific stops scored with immersive sound design, the layers of audio that art museums bring into their spaces can still leave plenty of room for individual artistic interpretation.

A producer walks into an art museum

Art museums are treasure troves of stories, and there are myriad ways to transpose those stories into sound.

“When you’re looking at a painting or an artwork, it’s not just about the visual,” said Ketenjian. “There’s so much that’s happened leading up to the creation of an artwork. So many emotions, so many thoughts, so many mistakes, so many triumphs. There’s a big story just in that one piece that you’re looking at. And that’s perfect for radio.”

Audio producers generate learning experiences not just for museum visitors, but for themselves. “I’ve really learned to slow down and take in what I perceive first,” said Girardeau. “And I don’t always get the audio tour. When I do, I don’t just go from thing to thing with the headphones on. I really like to take in what I perceive and open my senses. And I try to tune in to what I’m feeling.“

There’s a particular Rothko at SFMoMA that Girardeau loves. She said it makes her feel tingly in a way, because she perceives the colors vibrating. There’s a bench right in front of it where she likes to sit, engaging her senses. Even without headphones in, she might find herself thinking about Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel, a piece of music composed specifically for a space with Rothko paintings on display. 

That’s the beauty of sensorial layers: the connective tissue that grows between them, strengthening our appreciation for what we perceive, and extending invitations for all to engage with art that can move us.