With all the musically historical items and hands-on activity stations that fill Seattle’s Experience Music Project, you may be surprised to hear the No Wasted Space Notes Gallery currently boasts blank wall panels. Or, it will until Saturday, at least.
Offering chances for visitors to play instruments, to test their vocal skills and to view written histories of musical icons is nothing new to the EMP staff. The opening activity that accompanies the “Message to Love” exhibit, however, definitely is something new, even for this unique venue.
“Message to Love” pays homage to the late Jimi Hendrix and his guitars, and showcases two specific instruments; his 1955 Les Paul custom guitar and his 1968 white Stratocaster. But as far as actual pieces on display, that’s it. The rest of the space, as mentioned, is left blank — on purpose.
Those walls are expected to be filled with visitors’ messages to Hendrix, communicating what they love about his work and anything else that comes to mind about him as a musician.
So going on the premise that visitors have much to love about Hendrix, the curators’ choice to display only two items may provoke curiosity. Senior curator Jacob McMurray explains:
“Much of EMP-SFM is packed with objects of all kinds, and this can be overwhelming at times. We purposely wanted to limit the number of pieces on display in order to more sufficiently highlight them. Often, in an exhibition with many objects, the individual significance of particular objects can become diminished. We want to provide a meditative and reflective space in which the ‘holy grail’ aspect of these two objects can really shine.”
Another reason exists for packing away so many Hendrix items that previously were displayed, McMurray said.
“Being one of the foundational pillars of the museum, we’ve always had a Hendrix exhibition at the institution, but after nearly seven years, many of those key and iconic objects had been on constant display. Textile and paper-based objects are quite fragile to light, and we knew that many of Hendrix’s costumes and manuscripts really needed to rest for a while,” he said.
He said another motive lies behind letting the guests have their say on the walls. That is so the staff can examine the comments in order to better shape future Hendrix exhibits.
The exhibit’s second phase, entitled “Jimi Hendrix: An Evolution of Sound,” will focus on the visitor experience and explore why Hendrix’s sound remains vital and popular, McMurray said. That phase will open April 26 and close Feb. 7, 2010.
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