Great Art Exhibits In.... Tacoma?

Tacoma Art Museum

Thomas Tallis isn't as famous as Bach or Beethoven, but he's sort of a legend among early music aficionados--all 47 of them. He writes these really simple hymns that are somehow heartbreaking all the same. But his masterpiece wasn't meant for Anglicans sitting quietly, contemplatively in their parish churches. It's a 40-part behemoth: Spem in Alium (1573). Sound artist Janet Cardiff miked the individual members of an ensemble performing the work--done in eight choirs (groups) of five singers. She sets up the recorded voices in 40 speakers, grouped in an oval. A friend noticed that as you walk through it, some of the individual singers are a little weak, but the whole is far, far greater than the sum of its parts. As the loop started up again, I stopped walking through the exhibit and parked it in the middle of the oval. It was all chills up and down the spine.

www.stjohnsbible.org

Also on display, keeping with this whole religion thing, is pages from the St. John's Bible. Basically a bunch of monks in Minnesota are doing their own version of an illuminated text, complete with calligraphy (in English) and exquisite illustrations. A personal favorite is the creation story, where they decided to let modern science inspire their artistic rendering of the book (are you listening Discovery Institute?) putting Adam and Eve in Africa where anthropologists peg human origins. It's a nice change from the all-Caucasian cast.

Both are on display through Sept. 7. It's a good reason to make a trip south.