Notre Dame + Centre Pompidou

By placing listening devices on the surfaces of built and natural monuments, artist Bill Fontana captures uncanny natural music that reveals that these bodies are alive with sound. Fontana’s latest project amplifies the voice of Notre Dame. Since the devastating fire of 2019, the ringing of the cathedral's bells has ceased. To create his new work, Silent Echoes, Fontana attached sensors designed to detect vibrations to each of the ten bells of Notre Dame. As the bells reverberate in response to the ambient sounds of Paris the live feed is transmitted to a series of speakers at the Centre Pompidou, creating a haunting, immersive sound sculpture. In this episode, Alcôve's Alisa Carroll interviews Fontana in San Francisco, and very special guest Davia Nelson of The Kitchen Sisters meets with the artist in Paris.

Listen

Hammer Museum

A disc of light, an object of worship, a portal in the vault of night. The moon has always opened up infinite fields of perception, and in a new Hammer Museum exhibition, Drawing Down the Moon, curator and scholar Allegra Pesenti enters those many realms. In our wide-ranging conversation with Pesenti, she traces lunar iconography from across centuries and cultures, expressing the moon’s many aspects: mythical, magical, theological, scientific. Through her scholarship, we encounter Thessalian witches and modern Wiccans, Victor Hugo and 19th century astronomy, and discuss the work of “making the invisible visible.”

Listen

Musée de la Vie Romantique | Museum of Romantic Life

In this time of sea change, curators and artists, writers and journalists are turning their gaze to the ocean. From its depiction as a site of the sublime and the brutal in John Akomfrah’s film, Vertigo Sea, to its lyrical treatment in Sirène, the journal devoted to life governed by the pull of the tide, the sea is at the forefront of our cultural consciousness. At the Musée de la Vie Romantique in Paris, director Gaëlle Rio curated Tempêtes et naufrages | Storms and shipwrecks, an exhibition devoted to depictions of the ocean in the art of the 19th century. In this 10 minute episode, Rio shares how turbulent, luminous marine landscapes by Girodet and Vernet, Feyen-Perrin and Hugo, are ultimately projections of the human soul.

Listen

Abbaye de Fontevraud | Fontevraud Abbey

The Fontevristes, a monastic order led by women for over 700 years, began in the forests of the Loire Valley. Their great stone abbey was completed in 12th century, and still stands in Western France, a repository of centuries of meditation, prayer, and art. Today, Fontevraud is a secular center for art and culture, but historic voices still resonate within its walls. We talk with Director Martin Morillon, cultural mediator Zoé Wozniak, and contemporary artist François Réau about the spiritual and aesthetic atmosphere of this sacred space. Walk with us through garden, cloister, church, and crypt as we retrace the footsteps of the holy women of Fontevraud.

Listen

Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature | Museum of Hunting and Nature

On the first episode of Alcôve, we enter into Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature | Museum of Hunting and Nature, one of the most transportive spaces in Paris. The museum is a cabinet of curiosities where art and conservation intersect, and where ancient and modern breathe the same air. The episode features an immersive interview with Claude d'Anthenaise, the visionary curator and director who helped to create the otherworldly atmosphere of this extraordinary space.

Listen